Tonight, he was alone in the reading room. To his credit, he didn’t look very startled to see her, though he had the presence of mind not to reveal his relief.
“You shouldn’t,” he cautioned, leaning wearily back in his chair. He didn’t specify whether he meant that she shouldn’t be there or that she shouldn’t come closer, but she was, so she did. He didn’t argue, nor did he seem to give any indication he intended to. His mind was, at present, a sealed vault.
In her experience, that was hardly something he could maintain for long.
“You seem tired,” Parisa said. She wandered closer, running her fingers over the wood of the table. She brushed the corners of his books, placing the tactility of her skin at the forefront of his mind. He closed his eyes when she slid her hand from his arm to his shoulder, letting it hover in place for a moment. They had touched countless times by then; innocently, but often enough that memory would do half the work for her. “Something wrong?”
“You shouldn’t be here.” She could see the skin of his forearms pebbling at the brevity of their contact. Not everything was a matter of telepathy.
“I thought there weren’t rules?”
“I wouldn’t call this a rule.”
It was unfortunate that restraint looked so good on him. He was tense in all the right places, poised for a fight. “What would you call it?”
“Inadvisable.” His eyes were still closed, so she slid the tips of her fingers up to his neck, floating them over the hollow of his throat. “Possibly wrong.”
“Wrong?” Her fingertips danced below his collar, tracing his clavicle. “Don’t tempt me.”
He caught her hand in a sudden motion, circling her wrist with his fingers.
“Are you being careful, Parisa?”
She had the sense he wasn’t talking about the here and now.
“Should I be?” she asked.
“You have enemies. You mustn’t.”
“Why not? I always have enemies. It’s unavoidable.”
“No. Not here. Not—” He broke off. “Find someone somewhere, Parisa. Don’t waste your time on me; find someone in your initiation class, someone reliable. That or make yourself indispensable somehow.”
“Why,” she said with a laugh, “because you don’t want me to leave?”
“Because I don’t want you to—”
He broke off, eyes snapping open.
“What do you want from me?” he asked her quietly, and before she could open her mouth, he said, “I’ll give it to you if it means you’ll work harder at playing this game.”
There it was again; the acrid sense of fear.
“Is it answers?” he pressed her. “Information? What is it? Why me?”
She slid out of his grip, stroking his hair from his temples.
“What makes you so sure I want something? Dalton.” She had wanted to say his name, to test it out experimentally, so she did. She could see on his face how viscerally he suffered for it.
“You do. I know you do.” He inhaled sharply. “Tell me what it is.”
“What if I tell you I don’t know?” she murmured, maneuvering from behind his chair to position herself against the table, leaning back on her palms. His hands seemed to levitate in a trance, moving of their own accord to find her hips. “Maybe you intrigue me. Maybe I like a puzzle.”
“Play a game with someone else, then. Nico. Callum.”
The mention of Callum’s name gave her an involuntary bristle, and Dalton looked up, brows furrowed.
“What is it?”
“Nothing.” The room was lit from above, but down here there was only the single desk lamp to cast illumination over Dalton’s features. “I have no interest in Callum.”
Dalton lips brushed the fabric of her dress; above her sternum, below the hollow of her throat. His eyes closed, then opened.
“I saw what he did, you know. I watched.” Dalton gestured evasively around. “There are surveillance enchantments, wards everywhere, and I was watching the two of you at the time. I saw it.”
“So you saw him kill her, then.” The reminder nearly gave Parisa a shiver; or would have, if she were less responsible with her own control.
“No, Parisa.”
Dalton reached up, touching her cheek; a single brush of his thumb, right over the bone.
“I saw her kill herself,” he said softly, and though it was the worst time, surely the wrong one, Parisa instinctively pulled him closer. Impulsively, she wanted him in her grasp.