[ It feels like inviting a ghost to share the bed with them, a haunting presence that can't be banished now that he's summoned it. She is finished — with fleeing from the Darkling, even in death; with granting him any slip of power over them in both their waking and dreaming hours — but the Darkling has never been finished with her. Alina ignores the chill that washes over her and turns her skin to gooseflesh, but that hint that Nikolai has heard any of the stories surrounding her stay with the darkling —
It unsettles her, creeps beneath her skin, as she imagines Aleksander would crave. Would mock her for, if he were still residing within the darker corners of her mind. A human weakness, he might call it, if he didn't first prey on the fear that Nikolai might look upon her differently. When she raises her eyes from the messy slide of jam over her fingers, though, his gaze isn't the least bit condemning. ]
That makes two of us.
[ The snort she gives is entirely humorless, a bitter little thing over being so stupidly gullible in the first place, drawn in by the first pretty face to tell her she was special. ]
No one is going to give us any peace unless we take it for ourselves. I know that.
[ And even then, she wonders if they won't be dooming themselves into becoming birds with clipped wings, given the illusion that they are happy and free when the crown could cage them. But if ignoring rumors brings them even a modicum of peace — well, it's advice worth following, even if she sourly thinks to herself: that's easier said than done.
With put-upon sight, her nose wrinkles as she looks from her crumb-covered hands to his sheets, pulling absently at the covers. ]
You're going to get crumbs in your bed, if I climb in. [ It's clear, though, from the twist of her mouth that she's considering it. It is cold, and if the rumors will begin with or without her part in them, then maybe — She pauses, and then arches an eyebrow at him. ] I'll consider it once you've told me what they've been saying. I would rather be prepared to hear it than entirely unprepared.
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It unsettles her, creeps beneath her skin, as she imagines Aleksander would crave. Would mock her for, if he were still residing within the darker corners of her mind. A human weakness, he might call it, if he didn't first prey on the fear that Nikolai might look upon her differently. When she raises her eyes from the messy slide of jam over her fingers, though, his gaze isn't the least bit condemning. ]
That makes two of us.
[ The snort she gives is entirely humorless, a bitter little thing over being so stupidly gullible in the first place, drawn in by the first pretty face to tell her she was special. ]
No one is going to give us any peace unless we take it for ourselves. I know that.
[ And even then, she wonders if they won't be dooming themselves into becoming birds with clipped wings, given the illusion that they are happy and free when the crown could cage them. But if ignoring rumors brings them even a modicum of peace — well, it's advice worth following, even if she sourly thinks to herself: that's easier said than done.
With put-upon sight, her nose wrinkles as she looks from her crumb-covered hands to his sheets, pulling absently at the covers. ]
You're going to get crumbs in your bed, if I climb in. [ It's clear, though, from the twist of her mouth that she's considering it. It is cold, and if the rumors will begin with or without her part in them, then maybe — She pauses, and then arches an eyebrow at him. ] I'll consider it once you've told me what they've been saying. I would rather be prepared to hear it than entirely unprepared.
[ And subsequently humiliated because of it. ]