those others do with you? Now that we’ve seen what you’re capable of?”
“I can’t even get the twenty who spoke to me before to acknowledge me,” she said dryly. “I doubt I’ve caught the attention of those older and more primal.”
He did not look convinced. In fairness, she had caught the attention of one older and more primal already. But she had forced that meeting into fruition. Would it have happened at all had she not been in such a desperate place?
“Nadya, you’re like a beacon with all that power. I was drawn back to you across Tranavia even when I was…”
“Like that?” she offered.
“Like that,” he repeated.
“Completely out of your mind? Totally insane? A barely coherent, soulless monster?”
“All right, I get it.”
“You’re still all those things.”
“Thank you.”
“That’s how you could talk to me, though. Intersections of divinity.”
“I can’t figure out if it was a product of you stealing and binding my magic with yours, or simply because I am pulled to what you are. I wouldn’t be so sure that you haven’t caught the attention of older, far more dangerous gods.”
A chill of fear gripped her. She curled her knees up, wrapping her arms around them. His fear wasn’t something she had considered, but it was a valid one.
“And…” He paused, shaking his head. “Your power is terrifying, Nadya.”
“At the monastery—”
“At the monastery I wanted to see if you were drawing from some fallen god and you’re not. You’re not drawing from anything, whatever Pelageya says. But what you have feels…” He paused, searching for the right word. “Ancient.”
She stared at him wordlessly.
“When we go past the wall, I don’t know what you’re going to be opening yourself up to,” he finished.
“No, but you’ll finally get a taste of the power you crave,” she snapped, knowing she only said it because he was scaring her.
“That’s not why I’m here and you know it.” He bristled, something dangerous and erratic sparking in his voice.
“Playacting emotion isn’t going to work again, you know that, right?”
He sighed and tilted his head back. “Nadezhda Lapteva.” His tone was a little bit chaotic monster, a little bit melancholy boy.
“How much of this is ulterior motive?”
Too fast and too suddenly he had her face between his hands. His touch was gentle, but oh, he made it too easy to remember how swiftly he could kill her. How quickly iron claws could embed in her skull.
“You stupid, infuriating, clever girl,” he murmured. “I want to help you.”
“Insults are definitely the way to get your point across. Keep going, you’re doing marvelously.”
He let out a frustrated groan and rested his forehead against hers. “You need my help,” he finally said. “I’m helping. It’s not enough, but I’m trying.”
“None of it is enough,” she said softly. “I know you’re lying to me.”
“Am I?” he asked carefully.
“I was in that clearing, too, Malachiasz,” she said. “I know what I saw. Your mask did not hold up when confronted by other beings of power.”
“And what do you think you saw?”
“I don’t know,” she said, taking his face in her hands in turn and studying his features, sharp cheekbones and long eyelashes. The flickers and shifts had become mundane despite the horror. But her mortal brain didn’t like to remember how he had looked in the clearing; it skipped over it entirely.
What had all that power done to him? Aside from turning him into a monster made of pure chaos. Was he still mortal? And if what he said about her own magic was true … what was she?
“Can you be killed?”
“Are you going to try? It’s been a while since you’ve held a knife to my throat.”
She slid her hand down until it was wrapped around his throat. She lightly pressed her thumb against his windpipe. He shivered.
“Would cutting your throat even kill you?”
“It depends on how you went about it,” he said, a little breathlessly.
She released the pressure, but kept her hand on his throat a few seconds longer, until she finally shifted, weaving her fingers into the hair at the nape of his neck.
“You’re trying to ask me something,” he said.
“Are you immortal?”
He blinked. “Blood and bone, I hope not. I don’t think so.”
“You’ve said there are Vultures who are ancient.”
“There are. I’m the Black Vulture, though. Someone’s going to kill me eventually for the throne.”
He said it so matter-of-factly. Not like he didn’t care, but more like it was an inevitability. It broke her heart.
“But all this power must have an inverse effect on you.”
He shot her