Shut up, Arden. For the love of all that is holy, shut up.
Steeling myself for another wave of humiliation, I forced myself to meet his gaze, and was unsurprised to find his expression indecipherable apart from a rosy flush that lingered across his cheekbones.
He nodded. “Whatever you want, Farrow.”
He held my eyes for another moment, as though trying to probe past my own impenetrable mask.
I attempted to appear as stoic and unaffected as possible until he broke whatever enchantment held me prisoner and—at last—looked away.
24
“Again,” I panted, pushing myself to standing as my legs shook violently beneath me.
We’d been training for over an hour.
Golden sunlight streamed in through the grimy stained-glass windows of the Grotto as I tried again and again to resist Casimir’s mental attacks. My thermos of coffee had long gone cold, and my patience was wearing thin.
No matter how hard I fought them, Casimir’s glamours superseded any resistance on my part. At the onset of each vision, my senses abandoned me; I couldn’t see, smell, or hear anything apart from what he showed me. His magic overwhelmed me entirely, blurring fiction with reality until discerning the difference between the two was impossible. My mind was vulnerable and woefully unprotected. Still, I bore his onslaughts like hot daggers driving into my skull until at last, Casimir took pity on me and withdrew. Whenever I came to, I found myself on the floor, sweating and shaking uncontrollably.
His glamour was that pervasive.
“Let’s go again,” I gritted my teeth against another wave of nausea. One of the more unpleasant side effects of working with glamours was that they made you sick.
Casimir drew away, just as he had after every other time. He’d explained that, while not strictly necessary, it helped to maintain physical contact while glamouring me, and—to my increasing mortification—his touch never failed to set my heart thrumming.
I often wondered if he could hear my traitorous heart, but if he could, he had the grace not to mention it. The aftereffects of his glamours were unpleasant enough. The nausea, migraines, and body aches only amplified after each session ended, leaving my head pounding and my stomach roiling with acid. I tried to ignore the jolt of nerves that surged through my arm when his fingers brushed my skin, and shuddered with regret each time he released me.
Before he could argue, I interjected, “I’m fine. Just give me a minute, and we can try again.” I just needed to wait until the room stopped swimming.
“You’re letting me penetrate your mind far too easily,” Casimir clipped. “Let’s take a break, we’re not making any progress like this.”
“I said I’mfine.” I was panting, trying to focus my gaze on the still-spinning room. But I knew the longer we waited, the worse my symptoms would get.
“You are far from fine,” he huffed a laugh. “What youareis a very bad liar.”
I bristled at the accusation. “Maybe you’re the one who needs a break.” I forced my lips into an unconvincing smile that turned into a grimace of pain. “I didn’t know the big bad Darkseer could get tired so easily.”
Taunting him was perhaps an unhealthy way of letting out my frustration, but I relished the opportunity, nonetheless.
I still hadn’t summoned the courage to ask him to go to the Jewel Ball with me, despite my erstwhile promise to Gwen. The cowardly part of me hoped that we’d find some excuse to attend the ball together on Order business. That way I wouldn’t be obligated to ask him to go as my date. After the…incidentthat had occurred in my room a few hours ago, I just couldn’t stomach another rejection. I’d experienced enough humiliation for one day.
Embarrassment still clung to me like a bad hangover in the wake of the kiss, but from the way he was acting, I could almost convince myself I’d imagined it—if not for the feel of my slightly swollen lips and the memory of his fingers, tangled in my hair… Gods, why had I told him I wanted to keep things professional? And how dare he believe me, when my words were so clearly at odds with my actions.
He’d felt the way my traitorous body responded to him—all too eager and willing. But… maybe it was for the best. To desire anything more than friendship with someone like Casimir would be to invite disaster, and with what little time we had left to stop the ritual, neither of us could afford the distraction.
Knowing he was a dangerous kind of distraction did not stop me from wanting him.
Sometimes, I caught myself staring at his mouth, the outline of his lips on mine still burned into my memory like a brand in the moments before he glamoured me…
“Farrow?” I heard Casimir’s voice as though from a distance.
I came to with my cheek pressed against the cold, filthy stone, and the unpleasantly sticky feeling of sweat sliding down my forehead. The acrid smell of mildew filled my nostrils as I peered up at him from the Grotto floor.
“Do you always have to show me such horrible things?” I croaked.
Every time Casimir invaded my memories, it reminded me how utterly vulnerable I was—and indeed, vulnerability was what I’d signed up for when I’d agreed to let him train me—but I hadn’t expected this. To have my mind flayed open for his glamour to brutally parse my memories apart, separating them like seeds from the flesh of pomegranates, was pure carnage. I hated that I’d given him an open invitation to witness the worst moments of my life: my shame, my grief, my heartache.
He frowned. “That last vision was all you. I came across it in your memories.”