“Okay.”
After reapplying the crushed vampire remains on his face, neck, chest, and other areas, Castrel turns to the wall and scours the front shelving meticulously, finally stopping at one of the higher placed bins to pull out an almost identical set of basic leather armor, and a mask.
“Then put these on after you’ve coated yourself head to foot. We can’t afford any suspicion, so be thorough,” he says, walking over and handing me the canister once he’s suited up again.
“Here?” I ask.
He rolls his eyes and I wonder if that’s where I got my bad habit from. “Don’t worry,” he says. “I won’t look. Promise.”
He turns promptly, walking to the corner of the room—or as close as he can get without mounting the shelves—and stands immovable. “But if you need help applying the cleanser—”
“I’d rather roll in it first,” hastily, I shoot back.
He raises his hands up, laughing a little as he continues to face ever-forward. “You haven’t changed a bit, Wave.”
My heart skips a beat. He was the first one to ever call me ‘Wave.’ It’s because of Castrel that I have a suitable nickname.
My lip curls into a fast-shrinking smile. “You think?”
He nods with his hands resting on the top of his head, still facing the wall.
I take a deep breath.
“Okay,” I whisper to myself as I start to shed my clothes, checking at least ten times to make sure Castrel isn’t watching. Once my robes fall to my hips—still cinched by the sash—I open the canister. Surprisingly, the dust doesn’t smell at all, and it is as fine and dark as ash. Starting from my scalp, and gradually working my way down, I smear the stuff along my skin. A little goes a long way. I make it to my neck where the chain of Laisse dangles. I nearly rip it off and chuck it across the room, but something prevents me. Maybe it’s hope or delusion, but I leave it on for now.
“What about my tag?” I ask as I get to the transmitter on my right wrist.
“We will take care of that later.” Castrel’s voice is regretful. “Just make sure you apply a lot around the stakes. That’s what I had to do.”
“Alright,” I respond, realizing that Castrel is branded to a vampire as well—to Marina Schovir.
It takes a while, but I finally manage to get the last of the spaces in between my toes and my backside.
“Finished,” I say, turning around once I’m in the black unitard even though the armor straps keep giving me trouble. Castrel turns and watches me for a minute.
“Here,” he says softly, walking toward me.
I rip away from him when he reaches for a strap that I’d been working on for the last few minutes.
“I can do it,” I insist.
“Come on, we don’t have time for this,” he says. I look up to give him a piece of my mind and notice, for the first time in a decade, the depths of his eyes. Hazel and gold on the inside, hunter green along the outer rims, with tiny tree-like lines that go from pupil to iris over and over to form the outline of a sunflower. I forgot about those eyes.
I swallow and reply coldly. “I don’t need your help.”
I don’t need anyone. No one is worth the price of trust. I nearly laugh at the irony of my own thoughts.
He sighs. “At the Mezzanine, back when it was in Avignon, we were given assignments as children and raised learning the arts and skills required to complete our assignments for the future of the human race,” he explains. “You were—and are—my assignment.”
My heart finds my throat. Of all the things to say or ask, I ask the pitiful one. “Is that why you were my only friend?”
He grimaces. “No, that is not why I was your friend. But it is why I was the only one allowed to see you.”
I chew on my cheek, careful not to draw blood.
“I was never sick with some rare disease, was I?”
He shakes his head and changes the subject. “Anyway, regardless if you need me or not, I will be helping you.”
He yanks the straps from my hands to secure them with ease before smiling all smug down at me. I stick out my tongue like I used to back when we would play in the courtyards. He grins.
“And before you plant the thought in that thick head of yours, we are still friends.”
I narrow my eyes, unapologetically disbelieving.
“I am supposed to be