30. Caspian

Ihave been here before. Once. Twice. Many times. Under Cassius? I think.

No.

Before Cassius…

My skull aches. I can't remember. I hold her hand, and I can't remember. Good or bad. The past means nothing. I hold her hand, my stupid, foolish, smiling, little fae…

And her reality is all I give a damn about remembering. Ensuring. Protecting.

She wants her paintings, so I take her down a winding hall and shove her before one.

Oh.She should say. Then, we move on to the next. Done. Her will is fulfilled.

And she will smile that stupid smile again.

I wait for her sound of awe. That gasped Oh.

She says nothing. She stares at the portrait on the wall before us and says nothing. She stares. Wide, black eyes fixate on canvas and splatters of paint as though they are the most beautiful things in existence. The way Cassius would never look upon his horde—he never cherished us anyway. Not all of us.

Just me. She looks at this wall the way Cassius would look at me. But her obsession doesn't irritate. Doesn't disgust and make me want to rip out her fucking throat.

I want her to look at me the same way. The way she looks at this piece of canvas and oil and pigment is the way I want her to look at me.

In silence. In terrible, woeful awe. As though it holds her entire soul within its woven threads, and after just one look… She will never be the same again.

"Speak," I hiss at her. Scattered mortals flinch and stare. They, too, strive to create silence in this place by staring at images of blocky, distorted paint and perspective. I look where she looks. I see nothing. Color and ugliness and nothing.

"It's…" She trails off. Her eyes water, and my entire body is repelled. More tears from her. Tears not caused by me. But these are different. Not of pain or utter disappointment.

These ones… I reach out and brush one along her cheek and watch it disintegrate. These ones can stay, even though I don't understand their purpose. Their cause. They can stay and speckle her pretty, pale, hollow skin.

One by one, they fall. They adorn her face like diamonds and gold. They drip, drip down. But I need to know why.

"Speak," I demand, low enough for only her to hear.

She sucks in a ragged breath. Sighs. "It's so beautiful. Art… is so beautiful."

Beautiful. She says it with the breathless awe of some precious, incredible thing. I look, and I see ugly smears and meaningless marks.

"Show me," I demand, stepping closer, insisting upon it. "Tell me how to see what you see."

She swallows, her eyes still fixed on her painting. She shakes her head. Then takes our combined hands and presses them to her chest, right over her beating, thumping heart. "It's in here," she murmurs. "You see it with this."

With this. A beating heart. But mine doesn't pump and churn hot, flowing blood. It hasn't for a long while. Not since the night Cassius crept in…

Did he creep? I can't remember. That's the funny part. I can't remember one damn thing about the night he took me. Made me. Turned me into this.

"Tell me what you see," I snarl at her. "Tell me. Show me."

She takes my hand in both of hers and stares forward, fixated on her own painted world.

"The color is so beautiful," she says. Then hesitates. She's used to shutting up. Her stupid male fae would shut her up. I should shut her up.

"Tell me." I step into her, crowding her little body closer to the wall. With my lips near her ear, I stare forward and try to see what she sees. I want to see what she sees.

How better to destroy it. Embody it. Make her look at me and see the same stupid view she sees now.

"Tell me more."

"You can see the brush strokes," she says, my hand still clutched to her breast. Every breath she takes, I feel. In and out. Out and in. "You can tell what the artist was thinking, what he was feeling. You can see everything he was feeling."

But how? I look at the canvas and see colorless, formless shapes. Then I blink. Look again. Faces appear in the blurred, painted mess. Shapes. Structures. People on a lawn of green. I think.

Fuck. I can't remember how to interpret these strokes and blotches and colorful things.

Because Cassius made me forget how. I remember, I think… Art. Museum. I remember.

He made me forget. For the same reason he wants to erase her, he made me forget.

"Tell me more," I snarl, commanding her.

In a soft, halting whisper, she complies. "You can see the sunlight there." She points, her voice so fragile. I have to strain to hear her—me, with superior hearing. I have to strain to hear her. "If you look closely enough, it's like you can feel it, on your skin. You can hear their laughter, their chattering. This is magic."

Her eyes water again and more tears spill, glistening glass from this angle. My fangs ache and tease my lower lip painfully. I'd bite her to get her to stop. I'd bite her to make those tears continue to fall.

Beautiful things. No, ugly. No… beautiful. Raw and real. I see her tears, and I remember what it feels like to feel. Something other than hate and rage. Something softer than lust. What? What?

I look at her, and smell her scent, and it's closer, just within my reach.

What? What?

"Tell me," I beg of her. As if a vamryre could ever beg. But it's my voice I hear echoing back. Tell me. Tell me.

My old master would relish in my desperation. He would draw it out. Make me dance for him. Perform for him. Kill for him.

There was a prize at the end of those murders. I think. I wanted something. I think. Something badly enough to kill for it. To kill and kill.

I didn't want to. That's the lie he made me accept. Believe. Internalize.

I didn't want to kill for him. I never did.

My free hand is in her hair, my fae's, tangling and coiling the strands together, creating a makeshift leash to tether her to me with. Prevent any escape. "Tell me more."

She does. Gentle and soft, her voice is a salve on old wounds. Festering bleeding wounds that Cassius made me ignore.

Art means something to me. Meant something. Once…

I don't care, the monster in me hisses. The past. Old mortal bastard. Don't care!

But that doesn't mean I don't want to remember.

So, I let her speak. I let her sing to me, my little fae bird.

And in her voice, I start to recall something fractured, fragile, and forgotten.

Humanity, I think.

Whatever it is, I hate it. Loathe it. Despise it in me.

Whatever it is, she has it in spades. If I can't remember, I can drain it from her.

Drain her dry.