Page 207 of Ashen Torment

I lock my fingers in his hair and jerk his head back with a sharp tug, without warning.

“Something like this?”

For a moment he remains motionless, then a corner of his mouth lifts.

“In all likelihood,” he says, looking at me, “it will not be a fall of yours that your servant finds at dawn.”

I release my grip. My hand falls back to my chest as if it no longer belonged to me.

I bring the other to my eyes and burst into laughter, an uncontrolled laugh that shakes my shoulders and steals my breath.

He falls beside me, on his side, his face buried in the pillows. For a moment, he remains so.

Then I hear him mumble against the fabric. “I do not know what to do.”

28

Briser

Evander

The sheet is disturbed, folded imperfectly, still warm. The faint scent of skin and cedar persists in the air, mingled with the memory of a presence that is no longer there.

Étienne appears beside me, carrying a silver tray. The mutton broth is steaming.

“Pour vous, Vicomte.”

I make a sharp gesture with my hand, but he remains unfazed.

“It is for your health, Viscount,” he insists.

I accept the spoon only to have an occupation, to steady hands that are trembling ever so slightly. The warmth slides down my throat, and with it, the knot in my stomach loosens, though not entirely.

Étienne leans over the overturned basket where the fruit lies crushed, bruised apples and pears, a few broken figs. The sound of the wood as he gathers them is too loud in the silence Dorian left behind.

Sighing, I rest a hand on the sheet. The ripple beneath my fingers remains warm, a stubborn residue of him.

My valet mutters in French as he tidies the chaos, and I continue to drink, seeking an anchor in the broth, in the spoon, in anything that isn’t his absence. My eyes slide toward the cabinet, there is scattered ash and the stubs of spent cigarettes.

That fool had the audacity to smoke in my room.

I see myself again last night, not lucid, beneath him, or perhaps merely beside him. The broken breath, the skin cold despite the heat, the shaking hands.

And then a voice, in my ear. Low, barely a whisper.

I cannot say if it was real or a residue of the fever. A dream. An hallucination. I believe I caught a word.

Dus? Dum? Dushk?

Something hard, brief, like a strike delivered with the tongue.

The spoon slips from my fingers, hitting the plate, and the broth splashes. A drop reaches my cheek. Étienne is at my side at once.

“Send someone to Piccadilly.”

“What do you require?”

I swallow, still feeling that undefined sound thumping behind my forehead.