Selene blinked again and then grimaced. The gesture appeared painful. She winced and then raised her right arm and examined it. More scratches and welts ran down from her wrist to her elbow. “I had a little accident.”
I threw my bedcovers off and sat up. “No kidding. What happened?”
Selene sat up, too, brushing her black hair behind her shoulder. I noticed a leaf stuck in the long, silky strands. Selene saw it as well and plucked it out. “I tripped and fell.”
I folded my arms across my chest, unable to keep the disbelief from my face. Selene was far too graceful for things like tripping and falling. “During your walk last night?”
She nodded, a blush rising on her skin. “Yes. I was in Coleville and it was dark. You know how much stuff there is to trip over in there.”
She was right, I did. The place was packed with stuff—grave markers, stone statues, bushes, trees, flowerbeds. I’d tripped in there more than once myself. “So you were by yourself?” I asked, watching her reaction carefully.
She narrowed her eyes. “What does it matter?”
That was a definite no. But I wasn’t happy that she still insisted on hiding her activities. “It matters because you’re … you’re keeping secrets from me. You’re my best friend.” I cringed as I blurted it out. It was so childish, but I couldn’t help it. What could she possibly be doing that she couldn’t tell me about?
Selene dropped her gaze. “I’m not trying to keep secrets from you on purpose. It’s just … you wouldn’t understand.”
Angry, unexpected tears filled my eyes. I hadn’t realized how much it had been bothering me. “Fine. Don’t tell me.” Holding them back, I stood and turned to leave.
“Wait!” Selene cried. The sound of her raised voice stopped me cold. Selene almost never shouted or lost her cool.
I stopped and looked back at her.
“Just hear me out,” she said, meeting my gaze.
I huffed and then sat down on my bed again, arms crossing automatically.
Selene ran both of her hands through her hair, looking more anxious than I’d ever seen her. “I’ve been dealing with some things lately. Really personal things that I haven’t wanted to talk about to anybody. Stuff about who I am and what it means to be a siren. You can understand that, right?”
I swallowed, nodding. Of course I could. When I first found out the history behind Nightmares, I’d spent several weeks trying to cope with the knowledge that my kind had done so many heinous deeds to other magickinds that the Magi Senate had sanctioned the killing of Nightmares until there were hardly any of us left. It happened years and years ago, long before The Will, but that didn’t lessen the impact of knowing that evil might be a fundamental part of my Nightmare nature. I didn’t really believe that, but sometimes when I was feeling down on myself I had to stop and wonder.
“But you’ve been struggling with that since I’ve known you,” I said, softening my voice. Now that I had her talking, I didn’t want to blow it. Sometimes getting Selene to open up was like trying to convince a feral cat to let you pet it. One hasty move and it would retreat. “I mean, what with all the sirens-are-more-than-sex-objects stuff. So what’s different now?”
“It’s just”—Selene hesitated, her gaze dropping to the floor—“everything that happened with Marrow really opened my eyes to a lot of things. I’m still trying to sort it all out.”
At Marrow’s name, I felt my pulse quicken. “What does Marrow have to do with it?”
Selene looked up and held my gaze as she spoke. I could tell it was an effort. “Only that some of what he said is true.” She bit her lip. “The world we live in is kinda messed up.”
I took a deep breath, struggling to stay calm. Was my best friend really sympathizing with Marrow? The Red Warlock? The impossible-to-kill, evil wizard who wanted to be supreme dictator of the world? It was all I could do not to shudder.
“How so?” I said, trying not to freak out on her.
Selene looked relieved. “It’s not fair how the Magi force us to live a lie all the time, disguising ourselves as ordinaries, blending in. Why do we have to fit into their world? Why can’t we just have our own and be who we’re meant to be?”
“Well, for one thing,” I said, my mind bursting with counter arguments, “you can’t dismiss the dark ages. You’ve heard what it was like. The ordinaries killed thousands of us back then and that was long before the invention of guns and viral weapons. Just imagine what they could do now.”
Selene frowned. “But who’s to say that ordinaries would react that way? All that persecution was a long time ago when human beings were superstitious and ignorant.”
“Time doesn’t necessarily change things. Look at all the fights going on among magickind now that The Will’s gone.” I pursed my lips, trying to imagine what the world would be like if magickind came out in the open. What would people do when they learned that Metus demons derive their power from the fear of others or that Mors demons fed on death? I couldn’t say for sure, but I doubted most ordinaries would be open-minded about it.
Selene grimaced. “Well, you might be right. But still, why can’t we live apart then?”
“We do. Sorta.”
“We’re still expected to blend in. We have to hide so much and pretend we’re not what we really are.”