Page 51 of Alchemy of Souls

Am I a bad person that I’m enjoying this? “Holding hands?” I ask, and throw a dagger at the target as well, hitting the exact same spot her dagger sticks out of.

She narrows her eyes. “Also fine,” she says. But instead of calling her dagger back to her, she throws another and sticks it into the handle of mine.

I laugh.

“Casual touches?” I ask, and she turns to me.

“Also fine. But under no circumstances are we sitting together at meals. I can’t deal with your friends.”

Same, I think. But what I say is, “I don’t know, I think your friends would really enjoy having me around. Maybe a lot.”

“Grayson,” she warns.

“Claws,” I say back with a grin, and then I wink at her before she sends her dagger flying. And for the first time, she misses the bull’s-eye.

CHAPTER 28Grayson

Akari was in a mood today. She barely looked at me and Eloise during her class, except to tell us we were underwhelming. And while I don’t particularly care, I can tell it bothered Eloise. Classes after that weren’t any more promising. They ran late, for one, delaying dinner. Now that’s wrapped up, and Eloise is exuding a kind of anticipatory nervousness that makes me wonder if she’s planning on stabbing me in the hall. She keeps glancing at me and pressing her lips together as we walk toward our suite.

It takes three quarters of the walk for it to dawn on me that she might be stressing over the fake dating thing. Is she worried because I haven’t made a move yet or because she doesn’t want me to?

“If you’re uncomfortable,” I start. “We don’t have to—”

“I know,” she says too quickly. “I’ve just never done anything like this before.”

I laugh. “You think I have?”

“I think you’ve dated people, yeah,” she says, and I’m so startled, I stop in the hallway.

She stops, too, turning to face me. “What?” she says in a huff.

I rub the back of my neck. “No, nothing. I just didn’t realize you’d never dated anyone.”

She looks up at the ceiling and back down. “It’s not like I’ve neverkissed anyone. I’m not—damn it, Grayson, it’s not that shocking. I live at the weakest section of the wards. I can’t even leave my house after dark. How do you expect me to have an actual relationship?”

Her embarrassment flares and I feel like an absolute jerk. It somehow never occurred to me that on top of all the crappy treatment the Labor kids get that their lives are stripped of this very basic privilege.

“Don’t youdarepity me,” she says, a warning in her eyes.

But she’s wrong. I don’t feel pity at all; I feel pissed on a primal level at the wrongness of it. And I understand in a whole new light why she asked me to spearhead this. So, I lighten things to take the edge off her current emotions.

“You going to hit me with those?” I ask, nodding at her clenched hands.

“I’m seriously considering it,” she says.

I step closer with a smile. “Go for it. I’ll give you the first shot.”

She side-eyes me. “Don’t tempt me.”

I take another step closer.

“Here, I’ll even help you,” I say, and reach for her hand, placing it on my chest—a simple test to see how she reacts. Because there is no way I’m fake dating her if she doesn’t want me to touch her hand. God, is that even a sentence?

She sucks in air and I’m once again affected by her scent, which is decidedly no longer annoyed. Only now I’m annoyed—at myself, for being happy about it.

“What?” she asks, not removing her hand from my chest.

A group of first-year girls rounds the corner, including Willow, who I tripped because she insulted Eloise.