Chapter 4

4

SYLAS

Mina, my new patron, didn't seem surprised or dismayed in the least by the fact that I was going to kill her.

I could see the golden thread of fate binding us together, from her heart to where mine would be if I had one, but I didn't get a drop of energy off of her otherwise.

She really did know why she was here.

And it was clearly of her own volition; she hadn't been whipped into a frothing madness first, like most of my clientele.

The shadows I was comprised of rippled and shifted, becoming briefly more solidified, as if one by one different pieces of me decided they wanted to touch her. I was starving, and she was so perfect and pure—compared to me, everyone else was—and so sad. Yes, I could read it on her now, now that she was mine.

The dark circles under her eyes, the way her lips twisted down, her bitten nails and the way her shoulders—briefly proud while claiming me—had gone back to their familiar slump, as if in an effort to hide .

Why?

It didn't matter. Because I knew I would learn everything that had brought her to this place over the course of my next week at her side. I would taste her tears, haunt her dreams, and once I was through with her, having done her bidding until the sand on her mark ran down, I would know her better than she knew herself and her life would be mine as I ate it out of her, absorbing all of her light until I extinguished it entirely.

"It's not just that!" Royce was shouting at her—bringing me back from my reverie. "You think you're the first person to figure things out?"

I had no idea what he'd already said, but I flowed in front of her without thinking, to protect her from his impotent wrath. "She was drawn here. She cannot help it. She is what she is—as am I."

"She doesn't know the rules!" he started, shouting at me next.

She stepped away from me, making a triangle in between the three of us again. "I saw the coroner's reports. I know your great-grandfather?—"

"Yeah, you and every other asshole with an internet connection." Royce's eyes rolled to the ceiling. "Save me from fucking bored housewives and their true crime podcasts," he muttered.

She appeared affronted, and her anger gave her color, plus made her jut out her chin. "I figured out the Frazetta massacre was related to the hourglass, and before that, when the Boeing went down?—"

Royce sliced the air in front of her angrily. "What you don't know is that he feeds. Every day. Not just the ones that make the news. And if you don't give him someone else—he'll feed from you."

That did scare her, a little, and her fear called to me like blood to a shark. It made me want to envelope her and press more of it out of her.

"Be kinder, Royce," I said, flowing myself around the edges of the room, occupying more of the space until I was crowding the both of them.

"Why?" he spat.

"Because you're frightening her. And I am very, very, hungry."

He ignored me to question her further. "So you're sure you just happen to have a baseball's team worth of people you want to feed to a monster before the police figure things out, after they find your rotting corpse?"

The look she gave him then was complicated—but all her fears of me were forgotten, replaced by whatever urges had drawn her here. I regathered myself quickly, to reach over and put a finger to her lips, quieting whatever response she might have given him.

"Better to leave him guessing than to have him waste his time, attempting to thwart us." I glanced over to Royce. "Are you through?"

His hands clenched into fists. "Not until I'm rid of you."

I flowed over to the hourglass he'd thrown, picking it up and setting it onto his table for him. The magical sand inside of it was flowing in the exact same rhythm as the sands on Mina's arm, so he would know when I was close to killing her—and when I'd managed it, as I would be forced to return.

"No one would like that more than me," I said. It was the truth, I hated my confinement, and I cursed the day I met the progenitor of Royce's line. "But until then, I've been hired." I brought myself closer to Mina's level. "Come, my queen. Let's go someplace more private to discuss our terms."