Chapter 158: Hold Still, I’m Topping It Up

The cold hit them the moment the library doors shut behind them.

Daemus looked down at Blair in her thin sweater and hauled his hoodie off over his head and dropped it over hers.

"I’m fine," she said from somewhere inside it. "You’ll be cold."

"I’m a wolf." He tugged the hem down. It reached her knees. "Arms."

She found the sleeves. They hung a full hand past her fingers. The inside was still warm from him.

The path to Dormitory G ran behind the main hall and past the kitchens, where the lamps were far apart and nobody important ever walked. Daemus shortened his stride to match hers. He talked about his dreaded math exam, then hockey, then whether the Bear chef would give him the leftover pies if he asked nicely.

Blair didn’t hear most of it.

She knocked on every door on this floor.

"Daemus."

"...so I said, only if they’re the beef ones. Yeah?"

"The girl in the library. With the necklace."

His voice changed. "The one staring at you."

Blair looked up. "You saw her?"

"I always see who’s staring at you."

So she told him. The seven girls named Blair. The rumor that someone had gathered them for Jasper. The girl with the dorm registry who had gone from door to door, weeks ago, asking every Blair in the building to come and meet him.

Every door on her floor except Room 204.

Daemus stopped walking.

"Who told you this?"

"Someone in my hall."

"Okay, but who exactly?"

Blair shook her head. "She said she wasn’t supposed to talk to me. If I tell you, and you go and..."

"I wouldn’t go and anything."

She looked at his chin. He looked off at the kitchens.

"Okay," he admitted. "I’d go and a little."

They started walking again, slower. Steam drifted from the kitchen vents and vanished in the dark.

"So the necklace girl skipped you," Daemus said. "Why?"

"I don’t know."

"Maybe she figured the fish wouldn’t want you." He frowned. "Which is rude. But good."

"She doesn’t like me. You saw her face."

"Yeah, I saw it." His jaw tightened. "Tomorrow, after my exam, I’m gonna find out who she..."

"No."

It came out louder than she meant. Daemus blinked down at her.

Blair’s face burned, but she didn’t take it back. She looked at the path and made herself keep going.

"If the Wolf Prince starts asking about her, everyone will know by lunch," she whispered. "Jasper will know by lunch. And if he finds out she skipped someone..."

She didn’t finish. Seven girls hadn’t come back. She didn’t need to finish.

Daemus was quiet for a long moment.

"You’re protecting her," he said slowly. "The girl who looks at you like she wants to push you down the stairs."

"She’s human," Blair said. "She’s wearing his necklace. She doesn’t have anyone either."

He stared at her. Then, slowly, the corner of his mouth lifted.

"There it is," he said.

"There what is?"

"Nothing." He bumped her shoulder with his arm, very gently. "Fine. I won’t ask about her. I won’t go near her."

"Promise."

"I promise." He shoved his hands in his pockets.

* * *

Dormitory G was quiet at this hour, but not asleep. Two doors cracked open as they came up the stairs. One shut again fast. The other stayed open an inch, and Blair heard a whisper go down the hall behind them like a draft.

He’s back.

Daemus didn’t care to notice. He stopped outside Room 204 and frowned at the nail hole in the door. Then he leaned in and sniffed the doorframe.

"Fading," he said.

"It’s been one day."

"It’s a busy hallway." He rubbed his wrist up and down the frame with great seriousness, top to bottom, then did the latch for good measure. "There."

Blair dug her key out of her bag. When she turned back, he was looking at her neck.

"Can I?" he asked quietly. "Just that spot."

She nodded.

He braced one hand on the doorframe above her head. With the other, he pressed the inside of his wrist to her throat, just under her jaw.

"Hold still," he murmured. "I’m topping it up."

She held still. She couldn’t have moved if she’d tried. His pulse beat slow and heavy against her skin, and hers raced to catch up.

He breathed in once, deep. His hand flexed on the doorframe.

Then he stepped back.

"Okay," he said. "I should go."

"Yes, you have algebra."

"x is five."

"Not every time, Daemus." Blair worried he thought x was always five, but most of the questions they did, ironically, x was five.

He laughed, low, and rubbed the back of his neck. He didn’t leave. He looked past her at the dark room, at the narrow bed under the window.

"I could sleep on the floor."

"You need a real bed and proper sleep. For your exam."

"Your bed’s real."

"It’s too small, you won’t be comfortable," Blair whispered. She started to pull the hoodie off. He caught the hem and tugged it back down.

"Keep it," he said. "It’s on loan."

"Until when?"

"Until I say." He backed toward the stairs. "Lock the door."

She locked the door. She listened to his footsteps going down, and the stairwell door, and the whispers starting up again in the hall.

Then she sat on the edge of the bed in the dark.

A chain of real diamonds.

Are you Blair?

Blair’s hands went still in her lap as she finally remembered.

She had said no. She remembered that now. She had lied, and tried to walk past, and the girl had grabbed her arm.

Maybe you want to spend your life climbing into beastmen’s beds for shiny necklaces.

Blair pressed both sleeves over her mouth. She was alive because she had been mean to a mean stranger in a library.

But Jasper knew her name now. He had found the her on his own. Maybe he didn’t know that Olive had intentionally left her out.