“He looks around in amazement, taking in the mess. 'Where- Do you really sleep here? Perhaps you ought to set fire to your rooms as well.'

'Maybe,' I say, guiding him to my bed. It is strange to put my hand on his back. I can feel the warmth of his skin through the thin linen of his shirt, can feel the flex of his muscles.

It feels wrong to touch him as though he were a regular person, as though he weren't both the High King and also my enemy.

He needs no encouragement to sprawl on my mattress, head on the pillow, black hair spilling like crow feathers. He looks up at me with his night-coloured eyes, beautiful and terrible all at once. 'For a moment,' he says, 'I wondered if it wasn't you shooting bolts at me.'

I make a face at him. 'And what made you decide it wasn't?'

He grins up at me. 'They missed.'

I have said that he has the power to deliver a compliment and make it hurt. So, too, can he say something that ought to be insulting and deliver it in such a way that it feels like being truly seen.

Our eyes meet, and something dangerous sparks.

He hates you, I remind myself.

'Kiss me again,' he says, drunk and foolish. 'Kiss me until I am sick of it.'

I feel those words, feel them like a kick in the stomach. He sees my expression and laughs, a sound full of mockery. I can't tell which of us he's laughing at.

He hates you. Even if he wants you, he hates you.

Maybe he hates you the more for it.

After a moment, his eyes flutter closed. His voice falls to a whisper, as though he's talking to himself. 'If you're the sickness, I suppose you can't also be the cure.'

He drifts off to sleep, but I am wide awake.”