CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

Fallon

Three hours, and Autumn hadn’t returned from Violet’s room. Outside it was dark, but I hadn’t drawn the curtains in the former’s living room. Instead, I paced the carpet.

What is she up to? What takes this long?! It was torture compared to her afternoon disappearance, when she had kept her mind constantly open so I knew she was safe . . . at the Athenean University, of all places.

“Autumn!” I demanded in my head, expecting silence. Instead, I was greeted with two hard taps on the door.

I turned to Richard, a silent statue in an armchair. His look echoed my thought: That isn’t Autumn’s knock.

“Who is it?” I growled, knowing this wasn’t going to be pleasant company—not at midnight.

There was a pause. “Casper the Ghost. Just let me in.”

My jaw dropped a fraction as my magic gurgled in preparation. Richard was on his feet, scowling.

“What do you want?”

“To talk. I’m not going to kill you, for Christ’s sake, Father would have my soul.”

Even through the door, his accent was grating, like fingernails on a chalkboard scratching out the words classist, arrogant idiot.

“Let him in,” I told Richard, ready and waiting to use the same curse Autumn had performed on Felix.

“Chill, chill,” Kaspar snapped as he came through the door, hands raised in the air beside his head. “No, stay outside,” he told his guards as they went to follow him. “I was rather hoping we would be alone,” he finished, looking pointedly at Richard.

I nodded my approval—I could handle a lone vampire, no problem—but knew Richard would be right outside the door, listening to every word.

Kaspar glanced around the room, taking it in, eyes widening a little when he spotted the baby grand piano that had recently been added in the corner near the window. He walked over to it and sat down at the stool, running his fingers across the polished, gleaming keys.

“I assume you haven’t come here simply to entertain yourself,” I prompted when no talk was forthcoming.

“Violet and Autumn kicked me out of the room,” he retorted, beginning to play scales up and down the length of the keyboard. “So I came to apologize,” he said simply, never missing a note.

“Apologize?”

“Yes, you know? To sincerely express regret at an action? You should try it.”

“Apologize for what?” I growled, earnestly wishing I could gag him with a silencing spell.

He very suddenly lifted his hands from the keys and the room fell quiet, apart from the last few notes, which hung as eerie drones in the air. “Autumn told me what Felix said. I didn’t realize he had been such a dick when I attacked you.”

I half raised a shoulder. “Yeah, well . . . it’s done now.”

“Yeah.”

He was studying my reflection in the gleaming wood of the piano. I shoved my hands into my pockets and waited, hoping he would just leave. Sitting there in the light from the moon shining through the window, deathly pale and stock-still, staring at my image . . . it was like a dead man watching me.

“I get angry . . . since Mother died. I get why Autumn is so introverted. You bottle stuff up,” hesaid slowly.

My arms were as stiff as wood. Is Kaspar Varn talking . . . feelings? “You should try counseling,” I offered, unable to say anything else. “They’ve been great with Autumn.”

He slammed his hands back down on the piano and started playing a beautiful, flowing piece of music that sounded faintly like a waltz. “I just treated her like a human,” he insisted, voice rising with every word and chord. “Like prey! I didn’t abuse her . . . did I?”

His voice was faint at the end, thousands of doubts poured into two words. Inside, I panicked. What am I supposed to do? I’m not a shrink!

“I don’t know enough about your relationship to say,” I eventually choked out, blushing right through to my eyes.

“No, you don’t,” he agreed and the music began rising again. “But nobody thinks about how it could be turning that made her like this. It was too soon; too rushed. She wasn’t ready . . . maybe . . . maybe she isn’t cut out to be a vampire. Maybe she is just too human.”

“I—”

“She feeds off your Autumn. She’s always telling me about Autumn’s heartbeat, how it slows and speeds up when she’s with you, like a broken clock that cannot keep time, she says. Sometimes I think she pretends that heartbeat is hers, that she’s human again.”

My stomach churned. “Turning only works one way,” I said quietly.

He stopped playing again and in a blur he was facing me on the stool. “You think I don’t know that?!”

I flinched, a little afraid at his sudden turn, but just as quickly as he had erupted in anger he calmed down again, running a hand down the back of his head.

“I’m leaving, tomorrow evening—”

“You’re leaving court? Leaving Violet?” I spat before I could stop myself. I knew the guy was incompetent but to leave? I felt like gouging out his brain with my fingernails.

“I’m going to hunt,” he corrected. “For a few days on the mainland. I need to clear my head.”

“And you think leaving her will help?” I demanded, walking closer to him for the first time. I rounded the sofas and approached the piano, slowing down in case he lashed out like a wild animal. “And she’s still having those dreams of you, even though she doesn’t sleep, Autumn told me. You think her seeing you hunt will make her want to drink blood?!”

He stood up. “I just need to get out of here! It’s driving me crazy!”

I took a step closer. “Then you’re selfish!”

His mouth opened and closed, and then opened again. He shook his head slowly and then turned away to lean against the piano and rest his head in his hands. “No . . . I-I just don’t know what to do.”

I frowned at the hitch in his voice. “Are you . . . all right?” I tentatively approached and touched his shoulder gently, turning him a little. His eyes were dry but his lips were trembling. He briefly looked at me, gray-eyed, and then threw me off and bolted for the door, briefly stopping in the doorway.

“I thought infatuation would solve it all. I was wrong.”

And then he was gone.