Chapter 166: Don’t Eat Anything He Serves

Thursday’s paper let out at noon. Daemus had practice at one.

He walked her to the library anyway, and he steered her wide around the fountain.

"There aren’t any fish in the fountain," Blair said.

"You don’t know that." He kept one eye on the water until they were past it. Then he dug a crumpled receipt out of his jacket pocket. "I made a list."

"Of what?"

"Rules. For while I’m at practice." He smoothed it against his chest. "One. No fish."

"Right."

"It’s the main one. Two. Eat something. Three. If anybody bothers you, say my name, and I come over and bother them." He squinted at the paper. "Four... I can’t read four."

"You wrote it."

"I wrote it while I was walking."

She took the receipt from him. Four was in bigger letters than the rest. KISS ME GOODBYE.

Her face went warm. She looked up. He was grinning down at her.

"Four’s important," he said.

They had reached the library steps. Blair went up one, so they were almost of a height, and kissed him first.

He made a surprised sound against her mouth. Then his hands found her waist and pulled her flush against him. He kissed her slow and thorough, tilting her head back with one hand at her nape. When his tongue slid against hers, she curled her fingers into his collar and heard herself make a small, needy noise.

Daemus groaned and broke away.

"Don’t make that noise," he said hoarsely. "I have to skate."

"You started it."

"You started it. I just wrote it down." He rested his forehead against hers for a second, breathing. Then he stepped back and tapped the receipt in her hand. "There’s a five."

She looked. Five said: Don’t go Friday.

When she looked up again, he wasn’t grinning anymore. Blair folded the receipt in half and put it in her skirt pocket. She didn’t say anything.

He sighed through his nose, kissed her forehead, and jogged off toward the rink.

* * *

By evening the library had emptied out to a few seniors at the long tables and the Badger librarian, who pushed a squeaking cart up and down the rows and glared at anyone who turned a page too loudly.

Blair needed a commentary on the Treaty of the Seven Factions. It was on the top shelf of the back stacks, of course. She stood on her toes and stretched until her sweater rode up, and her fingertips just brushed the spine.

Behind her, a wheel squeaked.

She spun around so fast she hit the shelf with her shoulder. Her heart was in her throat.

The Badger’s cart rolled past the end of the aisle. The librarian gave her a long, sour look and kept going.

Blair let out a breath. She turned back to the shelf.

Killian was standing at the other end of the aisle.

He hadn’t been there a second ago. He came toward her without hurrying, reading the spines on his left as if he were shopping. The aisle was narrow. He stopped close enough that she had to put her back to the books.

He reached past her head and took the commentary down. His sleeve brushed her hair. He held the book out to her, and he looked at the shelf over her shoulder while he did it.

She took the book and held it against her chest. Then he slid two fingers into his jacket and drew out the card.

"There’s no address on this."

"No," Blair said.

"So either you’re not going, or you already know the way."

She thought about lying, and didn’t. "He said he knows where I sleep."

Killian’s tongue flicked out, once. The card bent between his fingers. He kept his eyes on the shelf, and all she felt was her own heartbeat.

"When did he say that?"

"After you left."

"Of course he did." He straightened the card against his thumb. "Seven girls with your name, from your dormitory. Do you know how many people have asked me whether it was me?"

"How many?"

"Two. To my face." A muscle moved in his jaw. "The rest just stare."

Blair said nothing.

"It wasn’t," he said. "Before you ask."

"I wasn’t going to ask."

"You were thinking it at me very loudly."

She closed her mouth.

"Silver collects things," Killian said. "Pearls. Diamonds. Pretty girls who wear his necklaces and follow him across the quad. He likes them very much." He turned the card over. "And then one day they aren’t around anymore, and he’s wearing new pearls."

He said the next part quietly.

"Silver eats what he collects."

He said it the way people said things like that.

Blair’s arms tightened around the book. She had seen Jasper eat, once, in the dark. She had seen what was left. She didn’t let herself think about it now.

"Why are you telling me?" she asked.

"Because I’m not finished with you." He tucked the card back into his jacket. "When I deal with you, I’d like there to be something left to deal with."

She studied him. The line of his jaw. The silver hair that fell over his brow and that he didn’t push back.

"That wasn’t a threat," she said slowly. "It sounded like you were worried."

"I’m the Crown Prince. I don’t worry. I have people for that."

"Then why won’t you look at me?"

The question came out before she could stop it. Killian’s jaw tightened.

"I look at you constantly."

"You look at my desk."

Blair stepped sideways, into his line of sight.

Killian shut his eyes.

She hadn’t expected that. She stood there with the book against her chest, a hand’s width from the Crown Prince, and he stood with his eyes closed in the middle of the library as if she were a bright light.

This close, his lashes were silver too. She hadn’t known that. He was cooler than Daemus. She could feel it coming off him, like standing beside a stone wall in shade. Her gaze dropped to his mouth, and stayed there, and she realized she had stopped breathing.

"Move, human," he said, very low.

She didn’t move.

"You’re doing this on purpose."

"I’m standing still."

"On purpose."

Above them, the reading orbs dimmed once for closing.

Killian opened his eyes, looking at the ceiling, and stepped back.

"Can I have my card back?" Blair asked.

"No."

"It’s addressed to me."

"Which is why I’m keeping it." He turned and walked away down the aisle. At the end of it he stopped, without turning around.

"If you go," he said, "don’t eat anything he serves you."

"I didn’t say I was going."

"You didn’t say anything."

Then he was gone. The orbs dimmed a second time.

Blair stood alone in the stacks with the receipt in her pocket and the book in her arms.

Daemus had told her she wasn’t going, but....