Chapter 141: Blood Runs Ice Cold

For the first twenty minutes, Blair’s chair moved.

It didn’t move much. Just an inch at a time. Every time Killian turned a page, she scooted a tiny bit farther toward the end of the table. Every time he reached for his pen, another inch. By the time they finished Chapter twelve, she was practically sitting in the kitchen.

Killian looked up from the textbook. He looked at the empty stretch of table between them. Then he looked at her.

"Stop moving your chair."

Blair froze. "I-I’m not."

"You have moved four feet."

"...The floor is slanted," Blair whispered.

Killian stared at her for a very long moment. Then he stood, picked up his textbook, walked the four feet down the table, and sat back down right next to her.

Blair wanted to die.

"Chapter thirteen," Killian said.

The next hour crawled by. Blair answered every question. She got every practice problem right. And with each one, Killian’s jaw got a little tighter, his questions a little sharper, the silence a little more strained.

She was starting to realize that the Crown Prince did not like losing. Halfway through Chapter fourteen, he stopped mid-sentence.

The afternoon sun had shifted. A wide, warm beam of light was spilling through the living room window and across the rug. Killian looked at it the way Daemus looked at a plate of steak.

Then he stood up, walked into the living room, and sat down in the armchair right in the middle of the sunbeam.

He closed his eyes.

Blair stared at him.

"Continue reading," Killian said, without opening his eyes. "Aloud. Page two hundred and six."

Blair looked down at page two hundred and six. She looked back at the Crown Prince, who was sprawled in Jack’s armchair with his face tipped up toward the window.

Oh, right, she realized. He’s cold-blooded.

The light poured over him. His head was tipped back against the chair, baring the long, pale line of his throat, and the black shirt pulled across his shoulders every time he breathed. There was a small, contented softness to his mouth that she had never seen before.

Blair’s face grew warm.

She began to read. Slowly at first, her voice barely above a whisper. But the longer his eyes stayed closed, the easier it got. She didn’t have to worry about where to look. She didn’t have to see him looking at her. Her voice grew steadier. By page two hundred and ten, she almost sounded normal.

"Why did you pull out her fang?"

The words were out of her mouth before she knew she was going to say them.

Blair clapped a hand over her lips. That wasn’t on page two hundred and ten.

Killian didn’t open his eyes. For a long moment, he didn’t answer at all, and she thought maybe he hadn’t heard.

"She lied to me," he said at last. "No one lies to me."

The sunlight caught his silver hair and turned it almost white.

"And she touched what is mine."

Blair’s fingers tightened on the textbook.

It was an apology. The closest thing to I’m sorry the Crown Prince would ever say.

"She’s going to be angry," Blair whispered, before she could stop herself.

"She will not touch you again." Killian shifted slightly in the chair, turning his face to catch more of the sun. "She has learned her lesson."

Blair was not so sure. As far as she could tell, the only lesson Rain had learned was exactly how much she hated Blair Willows.

Blair looked at him. At the calm, pale face tilted up toward the light, and the long silver lashes resting against his cheeks. Her heart gave a small, fluttering skip that had nothing to do with fear.

She squashed it flat immediately.

Did Heather think you would protect her too? she wanted to ask.

She didn’t. She looked back down at the page and kept reading.

After a while, his breathing slowed. His head tipped slightly to one side. Blair’s voice trailed off, and she watched him for a long moment.

He looked younger like this. Softer. The sharp edges of him had gone quiet in the warmth, and without those cold purple eyes watching her, he was just... beautiful. Unbearably, unfairly beautiful.

Blair realized she had been staring and snapped her eyes back down to the page, horrified at herself. He might have taken Heather, she reminded herself fiercely. Stop it.

His laptop was sitting on the dining table. Right in front of her.

Blair’s eyes drifted toward it.

"I am not asleep," Killian said.

Blair nearly fell out of her chair.

He opened his eyes, stood, and returned to the table as if nothing had happened, bringing the faint warmth of the sun with him.

Then he slid a single sheet of paper across the table.

"This is from the senior examination," he said. "Royal succession law. No first-year has ever answered it correctly."

Blair read the question. Then she read it again.

She picked up her pen and began to write. She filled half the page with the answer, laid out step by step. When she was done, she slid it back across the table without a word.

Killian read it.

"Wrong," he said.

Blair’s stomach dropped. She stared down at her notebook, her face going hot. She had been so sure. She went over it again in her head, step by step, looking for the mistake.

There wasn’t one.

She knew she should let it go. She knew she should nod and apologize and move on, because he was the Crown Prince, and you did not tell the Crown Prince he was wrong. Especially when you were alone in a house with him. Especially when you were almost certain he had made your roommate disappear.

But her mouth opened anyway.

"Article nine was amended," Blair whispered to her notebook. So softly she could barely hear it herself. "Two years ago. After the Hawthorne inheritance case."

The room went silent.

Killian didn’t move. Then, slowly, he picked up his textbook and flipped to the back. He ran one finger down the appendix. He stopped.

He read it once. Then he read it again.

Blair watched a muscle tick in his jaw.

"This edition is outdated," Killian said stiffly, and closed the textbook with a snap.

Blair pressed her lips together very tightly and said nothing.