“Shall I tell him, or will you?” Parisa asked with a quiet laugh, giving Libby a knowing glance. She stroked Tristan’s cheek with the knuckle of one finger, teasing along the bone until she brushed his mouth, beside his lips.
Libby couldn’t decide what was more troubling; the thoughts she was having about Tristan, or the fact that Parisa could see them and still didn’t believe Libby was capable of taking what she wanted.
What did she want?
Libby glanced at Tristan and felt it again; that little sway, the pulse of time stopping. It had been so unlike her, so much more about feeling and instinct than anything she’d ever done before. Whether a result of her sister’s loss or her own psyche, Libby thought constantly, relentlessly, perpetually wavering between states of worry or apprehension or, in most cases, fear. Fear of ineptitude, fear of failure. Fear she’d do it wrong, do it badly; be the disappointing daughter who lived instead of the brilliant one who died. She was afraid, always, except when she was proving herself to Nico, or letting Tristan lead her blindly, forcing her to trust in something she couldn’t see.
She took hold of Tristan’s face with one hand and pulled him close, dragging his lips to hers, and he let out a sound in her mouth that was both surprise and relief.
She kissed him.
He kissed her back.
It was enough of a thrill to have Tristan’s tongue in her mouth, his arm wound tightly around her ribs, but then Libby reached out further, finding the silk of Parisa’s slip dress. Parisa’s hand slid over Libby’s hip and when Tristan pulled away, catching his breath, Parisa kissed Libby’s neck, the tip of her tongue tracing a line across Libby’s throat. Libby slid a hand gracelessly up Parisa’s thigh and Tristan groaned in Libby’s mouth; evidence Parisa’s other hand must have found an equally suitable location.
Was this actually happening? It appeared it was. Remnants of the absinthe burned in Libby’s chest, sending her thoughts scattering. Tristan pulled her astride his lap and Parisa tugged at her sweater, casting it aside to join the near-empty bottle.
For a moment, half a lucid thought flashed through Libby’s mind before reverting to base sensations: hands, tongues, lips, teeth. Somehow Tristan’s chest was bare, and she dug her nails into the fibers of his muscle, his skin sparking where she touched it.
Things progressed hastily, drastically, euphorically. She tasted from them both like sips from the bottle, and they each had her like the last laugh. If she would regret this, that was for tomorrow to decide.
“Don’t let me wake up alone,” she whispered in Tristan’s ear, and it was quiet and fragile, crystalline, like glass breaking, the splinter of a hairline fracture that crept up from an unsteady base. Her vulnerability was misplaced among the multitude of sins, but she didn’t care. She wanted Parisa’s hair wrapped around her knuckles, she wanted Tristan to put her in positions she’d undeniably shiver to recount, but she wanted this, too. To be connected to someone undeniably, even temporarily, at least until the first garish rays of light came through.
Fleetingly, at the back of her mind, Libby knew things would always be different between them now, irreversibly so, and a saner piece of her wondered if that had been Parisa’s intention from the start. She’d practically spelled it out already, that sex was a means of asserting control—of creating strings, chains of obligation, where there had been none before—but whether Libby was being used or maneuvered or devoured, she didn’t care, she didn’t care, she didn’t care. It was enough to taste, to feel, to touch, instead of think. Enough to be that free of feeling.
Enough, for once, to feel, and nothing else.
CALLUM
SOMETHING HAD HAPPENED to Tristan.
It was immediately apparent upon Callum’s return to the Society’s London house. He had arrived in the late afternoon after spending their compulsory two days in Mykonos （he had no intention of going back to Cape Town, where the chance he would be expected to work was unfortunately much too high to risk） and begun scouring the house, starting with Tristan’s two most likely places in the morning: the library for tea, or the reading room for research. Callum had counted on the appearance of a particular version of Tristan upon sharing some significant news; namely, that someone, and in this case everyone, had left out a very important caveat about the Society’s initiation process.
Instead, though, he found Tristan in the door frame of the painted room, staring blankly at the floor.
“I presume you’ve had a visit from the Forum,” Callum began, and paused. Tristan looked more haggard than usual, as if he’d been up all night, and there were fumes of remorse and nausea coming off him in waves. “Christ,” said Callum upon closer inspection, taken aback. “What on earth did you get up to while we were all away?”