Page 28 of Maksym

I absorbed that because I had asked for it. Because facts mattered, even when they were grotesque.

“So this is because of you.”

His eyes softened. I did not want softness. A pulse of anger moved through me. It was not clean enough to use. Too tangled with fear, exhaustion, blood warmth, and that mountain-cold scent I wished I could stop smelling.

I took another sip before I meant to. The glass had already reached my mouth when I realized my hand had lifted it. Shame burned hotter than the wine.

Maksym saw. I knew he saw. His eyes lowered to the glass for one brief second, then returned to my face without comment. That mercy tasted bitter.

I put the glass down again, harder this time. The click was sharper. “Is there a book?”

He blinked.

“A book,” I repeated. “Manual. Treatise. Medical text. Folkloric field guide. Illustrated pamphlet for the newly dead. I am not particular.”

For the first time since Millie left the room, Maksym smiled.

Not the small, careful, almost-expression he had used before. This broke across his face before he stopped it, wide and sudden and devastatingly unguarded. It changed him. That was the infuriating part. The king went somewhere else for half a second and left a man behind, one with a scarred jaw and amber eyes gone bright with something dangerously close to joy.

My spine stiffened. The glass touched the table again with a deliberate click.

I lifted my chin. “Do you find that funny?”

The smile vanished so quickly it was almost satisfying.

“No.”

“Because I am sorry I am not better versed in monsters from folklore. I must have missed that elective between Evidence and Federal Criminal Procedure.”

His expression gentled, which was worse than smiling.

“I did not laugh at you.”

“You smiled.”

“Yes.”

“That is generally adjacent.”

He almost did it again. I saw it. The corner of his mouth betrayed him for one second before he mastered it. He looked down at his hands, still flat on the table, as if he distrusted them less than his face.

“I smiled because you asked for a book,” he said. “You are frightened, starving, newly turned, and angry enough to set fire to this room with your teeth if nature had granted you the talent. And still, your first instinct is research.”

“My first instinct was not dying. Research came after.”

“Of course.”

There was something in his voice that made the room too small. Respect.

I knew what mockery sounded like. Condescension had been the background music of my education. Men in tailored suits had called me impressive in tones that meant unexpected. Judges had complimented my preparation as if they were rewarding a dog for walking upright. Opposing counsel had heard my accent and smiled like they had already won.

Maksym did not sound surprised that I could think. He sounded pleased that I still wanted to.

“There is a library,” he said. “Extensive. Texts. Histories. Medical accounts, though some are outdated and others are written by men who should have been forbidden ink. I will have appropriate volumes brought to you.”

“Appropriate according to whom?”

“You, once you are strong enough to object to my selections in detail. You are, of course, welcome to go to the library yourself. But it would be difficult to navigate at first.”