Chapter 183: I Don’t Own Towels

Jasper didn’t take her back to Dormitory G.

He carried her across the playing fields toward the dark buildings.

"Put me down," Blair said.

He didn’t.

She pushed at his chest. It was like pushing a wall.

Dormitory G came into view, every window dark. She twisted toward it. "That’s my dorm."

His arms tightened. He kept walking.

If anybody bothers you, say my name. Daemus was asleep across campus with practice at five and Jasper ate beastmen. She had watched him do it.

She kept the name behind her teeth.

Jasper carried her past the dark library and the fountain, up a path she had never walked, to a tall building where only the top floor was lit. A side door opened under his palm. Inside, a staircase wound up and up. He took it two steps at a time and didn’t breathe hard once.

Blair counted the landings. Five.

At the top he shouldered through a door, and heat hit her face.

The room was long and dim. A fire roared in a stone hearth at the far end, the only light. Three wide basins were sunk into the floor between her and the fire. One held still water. One steamed. The third gave off a sharp chemical smell that stung her eyes, and its surface moved in slow, oily bubbles.

Against the far wall stood the biggest bed she had ever seen.

Blair stopped breathing.

"Welcome to the playroom," Jasper said.

He set her down on a stool by the hearth and bent to throw a log on the fire.

She was at the door before he straightened. There was no handle, only a smooth dark panel where one should have been, like the one in his elevator. She pressed her palm to it. Nothing.

"It only opens for me," Jasper said, without turning around. "Sit down, sweetheart."

She stood with her hand flat on the door. Then she went back, because there was nowhere else to go.

He crouched in front of her. He lifted his own coat off her shoulders and tossed it toward the bed. Then he took hold of hers, heavy with the lake water, and began working it down her arms.

"I can do it," Blair said.

"Yes, yes," he agreed, and kept going.

He took his time. The wet sleeves dragged, and his knuckles slid down the insides of her arms all the way to her wrists. Her sweater clung to her underneath. He looked at it, then at her.

Blair crossed her arms over her chest.

Jasper smiled and dropped the coat on the stone with a slap.

"Give me your hand."

She tucked both hands into her armpits.

"Sweetheart." He sounded hurt. "I pulled you out of a lake tonight. Do you really think I went through all that trouble to burn your fingers off?"

"I don’t know," Blair said.

"Neither do I." His eyes were very bright. "That’s the fun part."

He took her left wrist and pulled. Not hard. He didn’t need to. She came off the stool onto her knees beside him at the mouth of the hearth, and he pushed her hand into the fire.

Blair screamed.

She wrenched back with her whole body. His grip didn’t move. Flames wrapped her fingers and licked up between them, and she screamed again, and then she ran out of breath, and where the pain should have been there was only heat.

Warm. Like holding her hand over a bath.

She stared at it. The fire moved over her skin, and her skin stayed pale. Her sweater cuff blackened, smoked and caught. Jasper slapped it out with his free hand and hissed, shaking his fingers.

Then he drew her hand out of the fire and turned it over in the light.

No blisters. No red. Her nails were still clean.

Blair flexed her fingers. They didn’t even sting.

The lake. Now this?

She cupped the hand against her chest with the other one, as if it belonged to someone else.

Jasper was watching her face now. Slowly, he smiled.

"You didn’t know," he said.

He pried her hand loose and pressed the palm to his cheek. Then he turned his head and kissed the center of it, and then the inside of her wrist, where her pulse was going wild.

Blair felt it all the way down. She hated that.

"Warm," he murmured against her skin.

His eyes went to her mouth, to the cut on her lower lip, and stayed there one beat too long. Then he looked away.

He let go of her hand and stood.

"You’re dripping on my floor." He glanced around the room as if he’d only just remembered it. "And I don’t own towels."

"You’re a fish," Blair said, before she could stop herself.

"I’m a fish," he agreed. He took a phone from his trouser pocket, pressed one name and held it to his ear.

"Olive, sweetie." His voice went soft as silk. "I need you. Bring towels."

Blair went cold all over, the way the lake hadn’t managed.

She opened her mouth. Then she closed it. I won’t tell him.

* * *

Olive came in eleven minutes.

The door swung open and she swept through it with her arms full of folded towels. She had redone her hair. Fresh lipstick, fresh mascara, the diamonds glittering at her throat. She was still in the camel coat and the heeled boots.

"I came as fast as I..."

She saw Blair at the fire.

The towels hit the floor.

"No," Olive said. "No, you were... you were under the..."

She stopped.

The fire popped. Nobody moved.

Jasper looked at Olive for a long moment. Then he looked down at her boots.

He crossed the room, crouched in front of her and lifted her foot by the ankle, gently, like a man in a shoe shop. Mud from the lake bank was caked around the heel. A sliver of ice was still melting in the tread.

He looked across the room at Blair’s knuckles.

"Oh, honey," he said softly.

"You stopped sending the car." Olive’s voice cracked. "You stopped looking at me. She was in the way, she..."

"You tried to break my new toy." Jasper set her foot down and rose. He brushed a curl off her cheek. "I only just got it."

He took her hand. Olive came with him the way Blair had: not because he pulled, but because there was nowhere else to go. Her heels clicked on the stone. Past the still water. Past the steam.

Olive saw where they were going and started to cry.

"Master. Master, please..."

Blair stood up.

"Jasper."

He didn’t stop.

"She’s mine to forgive."

Jasper stopped at the edge of the acid. Olive’s boots were an inch from the rim. He turned his head.

"Yours?"

"She put me in. Not you." Blair’s hand was shaking at her side. "So it’s mine."

Jasper studied her across the room for a long time. Then the smile came, slow and delighted, as if she’d handed him a present.

He let go of Olive’s hand.

"Fine," he said. "She’s yours."

He tucked a strand of hair behind Olive’s ear and bent to look into her face.

"Did you hear that, sweetie? You belong to her now." He patted her cheek. "Say thank you."

Olive’s mouth worked. Her mascara was running.

"Thank you," she whispered, looking at Blair.

"Go home," Jasper said.

Olive went. At the door she looked back once, and what was in her face wasn’t gratitude.

The door shut.

Jasper picked a towel up off the floor and dropped it over Blair’s head. Through it she heard him walk back to the basins, and stop.

"Sweetheart," he said. "How do you feel about acid?"