“You have no idea. One of the wolves had a party last night, and it got a little out of control.” She waves a hand up and down in front of her face. “Hence the old-hag look.”

“That’s not quite how I would describe it, but okay.” I grin at her. “So that begs the question, why are you getting up when you have all day to recuperate?”

“Because I’m going with you, silly.”

“What? No, you don’t have to do that. We’re just going to sit around and read dusty books all day.”

“I can sit around with the best of them.” Macy pushes to her feet and stumbles her way over to the bathroom. “Besides, I’m really good at research. Like, wicked good, even without the spells. So I’ll help you until I have to meet Gwen at two.”

“There’s a spell to help you research?” I ask, fascinated at the idea.

She rolls her eyes—or at least, I think she does. The insanely heavy, smeared eye makeup makes it impossible to tell. “There’s a spell for everything if you look hard enough.”

“Everything?” I ask, but she’s already shut the bathroom door behind her. Seconds later, I hear the shower go on.

“Everything,” Hudson answers. “Witches are nothing if not practical creatures. Why do something the hard way if you can hack it?”

He’s sitting on the floor near the door, knees up and arms draped over them. For the first time since he showed up in my head, he’s dressed in a pair of faded jeans. They’re ripped at the knees, frayed around the bottom, and somehow manage to look amazing on him. As does the white T-shirt he’s wearing.

“What about vampires?” I ask, because I’m curious. And because I’m anxious to distract myself from the fact that Hudson looks good—and that I’ve noticed that fact. “Are they practical, too?”

He snorts. “Only when it comes to who they’re going to eat.”

“That’s awful!” I tell him, but I’m laughing just a little.

“Yeah, well, awful and true usually go hand in hand.” He runs his palms over his knees in a gesture that looks an awful lot like nerves. “Or haven’t you figured that out yet?”

That he believes this says a lot about Hudson. But he’s not usually so brutal, and I can’t help wondering what happened in the middle of the night that turned him so massively bitter. I think about asking him, but things are relatively peaceful right now, and I’d rather try to keep it that way. Especially since I’m meeting up with Jaxon in less than an hour.

“I’m going to change, okay?” I tell Hudson as I cross to my closet to pick something to wear.

He waves a hand in that negligent “do what you want” way that he has, but he also tilts his head back against the wall and closes his eyes.

“Thank you,” I tell him as I start to browse through my clothes.

He doesn’t answer.

I move to pull out one of the outfits Macy got me when I first moved here, but in the end I settle on a turquoise tank top and black yoga pants from my old life. Because I now live in a sometimes-drafty old castle in Alaska and I don’t want to spend the next ten hours of my life freezing, I layer my favorite cardigan over the tank top. As its worn softness settles around me, I feel more like myself than I have since I turned back from being stone.

It’s a good feeling.

“I’m done,” I tell Hudson softly, and he nods, but he doesn’t open his eyes.

And as I stand here with this unique, unprecedented chance to study him uninterrupted—usually he’s wide awake and trading barbs with me every time I so much as get a glimpse of him—I can’t help but realize how tired he looks.

I get it. I’ve had two solid nights of sleep and I still feel like I’ve been run over by a semi. But his tiredness looks edgier, harder, more soul deep, and I wonder what’s going on in his head. I wonder what he’s feeling, if anything.

Four days ago, it would have been impossible for me to imagine that I would worry about Hudson, even for a second. I still can’t believe it now. Not after everything he’s done, to Jaxon and to everyone else here at Katmere. Not after everything he wanted to do to the world.

I wonder if this is what Stockholm Syndrome feels like? Despite everything your captor has done, all the horrible things they are, you start to identify with them anyway? God, I really hope that’s not the case.

“I think you should be more concerned about whether reverse Stockholm Syndrome is a thing, don’t you? Considering you’re the one who has been holding me captive for almost three and a half months?” The crisp British accent is back, and when he opens his eyes, so is the superior smirk that makes Hudson…Hudson.

My eyes go wide. “Me? You’re the one who won’t leave my head!”

“Won’t leave your head?” he scoffs. “Do you know how ridiculous that sounds? I’m desperate to leave your head. You’re the one who wastes time going to classes and painting pictures—oh, and kissing my brother—when you should be looking for a bloodstone!”

“I’m sorry that me living my life is such a waste of time for you, but I can’t just drop everything and run around the world to stop you from having a temper tantrum,” I shoot back.

“Temper tantrum?” His voice is dangerously low. “That’s the second time you’ve accused me of having a temper tantrum when I’ve expressed legitimate concerns about your attitude. I put up with it the first time, but now I’m warning you. Don’t do it again.”

I take exception at the warning, not to mention the look in his eyes when he issues it. “Or what?” I ask, my entire body crackling with outrage.

Suddenly he’s up and across the room, his face several inches from mine. “Or I’ll stop playing nice, and that’s something I’m not sure you—or your precious little mate—can handle.”

“You think taking over my body and leaving me covered in blood is playing nice?” I screech, about half an octave shy of the pitch needed to actually break glass. “You think making snide comments about your brother every second I’m with him is playing nice?”

His eyes narrow to slits. “Compared to what you’re doing to me? Hell yeah, I think I’m playing nice.”

“Doing to you? Doing to you?” I throw my hand in a “step right up” kind of gesture. “Please, feel free. Tell me exactly what it is that I’m doing to you that’s so awful besides trying to find a way for you to live outside of my head?”

“You—” He breaks off, fists clenched and jaw working as he stares me down. “I—” With a roar, he whirls around and punches a fist straight through the nearest wall.

I rear back, shocked at the depth of his fury. Shocked even more by the fact that there’s an actual fist-size hole in the wall next to my head. I look down at my hands, wondering if maybe he took over my mind long enough for me to somehow punch the hole.

But my hands are fine, and the knuckles aren’t the least bit red. So no, I didn’t punch the wall. Hudson did. The only question is how?

Fear races through me at the idea that he can wield that kind of power even when he’s bodyless. Even when he’s inside me. I know his main power is that of persuasion, and for the first time, I wonder if he’s using it on me without my knowledge.

Maybe that’s why I feel bad for him sometimes. Maybe that’s why, last night, I thought that maybe he wasn’t quite the enemy I’d been afraid he would be. Maybe that’s why—

“Could you just stop?” Hudson whispers, and he looks weaker and more sickly than I have ever seen him. “Not forever, but just for a few minutes. Could you please just stop?”

46

Gargoyles Need a

Little Glamour, Too

“Stop what?” I ask, baffled, as he turns away.

His shoulders sag.

“Hudson?” I prompt when he doesn’t answer, but he just shakes his head as he walks over to the window so he can look out at the snow. “Stop what?”

He laughs, but it’s not his normal sarcastic laugh. Instead, it’s just…sad. “The fact that you don’t know says everything.”

I’m not sure how to respond to that, so I don’t say anything. Silence billows around us like a piece of the shiny tissue paper my mom always wrapped my presents in—weightless and so, so fragile—and the longer it goes on, the more I’m afraid to break it. The more I’m afraid that if I do, I’ll also break the weird truce that Hudson and I have had going on for the last two days.

And if I do, what happens then?

Thankfully, Macy comes to the rescue—as usual. At nine forty-five, a full fifteen minutes before I have to meet Jaxon at the cafeteria, she comes bopping out of the bathroom looking a million times better than when she went in.

“Give me five minutes to find my shoes and do a quick glamour, and we can be on our way,” she says as she walks to her closet.

“Why do you always get the glamour, and I always have to look like this?” I ask, waving a hand in front of my face.

“Because you have the gorgeous hair. And you look fine. Honest.”

She wiggles her hands in front of her face and chants a few words under her breath, and suddenly her hair is dry and her face looks a little brighter, a little smoother, a little more beautiful.

“You’re disgusting,” I tell her.

“Fine, fine, fine.” She rolls her eyes. “Come here and I’ll do one on you.”

Excitement flutters in my chest. “Really?”

“Really. I would have done one before, but you never seemed interested. It’s easy-peasy.”

Normally, I’m not interested—I’m pretty resigned to my cute-on-a-good-day looks. But after everything that’s already happened with Hudson and what I’m afraid is still to come once Hudson and Jaxon are back in the same room together, I could use the extra armor.