Alex takes me to his quarters.

It takes a weirdly long time to reach them.

At first, Alex kept me in the front—which makes sense, because he’s supposed to be watching me—but then he... just didn't tell me where to go. So we’d stood in the Great Hall together like that for five minutes, not looking at each other. In the end though, he’d blinked first, and broken the tense silence to give out instructions, which I'd dutifully followed. Right, then down the corridor, then left, then another left, on and on, for what felt like ages, until we finally arrived at his study.

Or well, presumably his study. It’s not like I’ve ever visited it to know.

But the room we walk into sure looks like it would belong to Alex. There are open books haphazardly scattered across the tables, gleaming weapons mounted on the walls, and well-worn armor displayed beneath ornate tapestries of hunting scenes. The whole room just feels very… boy. Like, he might as well have been displaying finished lego builds.

Though the study does also, weirdly, remind me of the Morrells' cabin and Aurelia's display of bows and arrows, once you account for how it's twice the size of their cabin. I guess there’s a reason Alex and Aurelia are childhood best friends.

Behind us, the two guards whom Alex had grabbed with a gesture bow, then begin backing out of the room. They pull the doors after them as they go, until with a clang the doors seal shut. I assume the guards will now take their post just outside, exactly as Alex had promised Magnus.

So: Great. No escape.

I go back to looking at the walls and not Alex.

After all, no one can actually force me to talk with him while he’s “holding” me here.

Ignoring him… isn’t really working though. I can still feel him looking at me—and probably with that same creepy look that he’d had every time I’d turned around on the walk here.

Underneath the golden candlelight, his eyes had turned hazel. And with the way he'd tracked my smallest movement, he'd reminded me far too much of my aunt's cat when we dangled a toy mouse in front of her—just before she’d pounced and clawed it down to the floor.

“Aurelia,” Alex says.

I tense. And still don't turn around.

Sir, how clearly do I have to show that I'm not talking to you? Read a signal or four.

Footsteps approach me from behind. I can literally feel his body heat approaching—

And nope. I walk a few steps forward and put some more distance between us. Alex follows. I walk a few steps more. He keeps following—

Now I’m two steps away from the ugly tapestry of a mob of hunters taking down some poor deer, and I'd rather not get smothered in musty fabric.

I turn around on my heels.

“Okay, okay, fine,” I say, and put my hands up in front of me. “We can talk. Just. Stay away a bit, please.”

In good news: Alex can’t intimidate me with his height advantage in this body, since Aurelia’s about as tall as Alex.

In bad news: Since Aurelia’s as tall as Alex, I’m staring straight into those blown-glass eyes.

He raises any eyebrow. “Why? Do I make you nervous?”

Alex takes another step forward, and now my back is flush against the tapestry. I can feel the stone bricks behind it digging into my back.

His eyes move from the top of my head down to my feet, and then up again. And hell yes, he makes me nervous—my heart’s jumping so hard I can feel it in my throat. It's like it's trying its hardest to abandon ship and escape even if the rest of my body can’t.

“Do you remember what we told each other in the forest, Aurelia?” Alex asks. His voice is pitched low.

“Uh…" I laugh nervously. “Which time? We’ve, um, spent a lot of time in forests together, you know.”

He lays one hand on my shoulder, and now I’m not just trapped, I’m pinned.

“At night, on the last full moon. The special time,” he says, with emphasis.

‘Special’ time? At night?

Sweat starts gathering on my palms and the back of my neck.

I thought Alex and Aurelia were like—childhood loves.¹ Not like—

Hadn’t Prime Alex said his encounter with that hedge witch was his first?²

Alex's face moves a few inches closer, and now my entire field of vision is just his sharp features.

He can’t possibly want—although they say after adversity people need to reaffirm life and whatnot—plus the battle adrenaline can—

But I’ve never even had a boyfriend! The last and only guy I’ve ever kissed was Timmy at our school dance in eighth grade!³ And I’m disgusting right now, like, I quite literally smell like a dungeon!

I put my hands up higher between us. For one moment I contemplate actually pushing him back—but laying my hands on his chest to do it seems like a distinctly bad idea right now.

“Oh, of course, yeah, I remember.” I laugh awkwardly again. “But aren’t there things you wanted to talk about? The things I haven’t been telling you? So, um, I’m sorry, and we should like, do that. Talk, I mean.”

His expression sort… flickers.

“Of course. Let us talk,” Alex says. He's speaking so softly he's practically whispering. “Shall we talk about how you hid in the dungeons instead of fighting to protect the weak, like you’ve always sworn you would if given the opportunity? Or about how you claimed to be a seer when you’ve never breathed a single word regarding a premonition to me? About how you didn’t remember the way to my rooms? About how we never met last full moon?”

His hands move faster than I can register. One moment they’re next to his side, and the next his left hand is on my throat and the other is pressing something sharp to the middle of my chest.

I gasp, but he chokes off the sound with a thumb pressed against my windpipe, and then eases back. The rest of his fingers grip tight around the back of my neck.

Trying not to wheeze, I slowly, carefully, tilt my head down. There's the line of Alex's right arm, the spread of his fingers... the hilt of the dagger, the point of a vey sharp looking blade, stopped just before it punctured through skin.

But I'm sure that Alex is well-trained enough that if he chooses to plunge the dagger in, he won't be missing my heart.

I look back up, and into those icy, glass-blown eyes.

I’d said earlier that this Alex isn’t anything like the Prime Alex I’d encountered in the novels.

I was wrong.

Right now, Alex looks exactly like I’d always imagined the Chess Games of Blood's protagonist to look. Like someone who can lead a rebellion and put thousands to death without flinching.

“I don’t know who or what the fuck you are,” Alex snarls, “but tell me what you want and where Aurelia is.”

---

1. Yes, I’m aware Alex and Aurelia are both twenty and perfectly mature adults—but it's still a perfectly reasonable assumption! In flashbacks, Alex Prime hadn’t ever thought about… things. It’d always been them sparring at dawn, or frolicking in piles of leaves, or exchanging practice kisses in between feeding each other berries. All that schmoopy puppy love stuff.

2. Okay, in retrospect, there is enough ambiguity about what ‘first’ means to fit Aurelia into Alex Prime’s short line of lovers. Since Chess Games of Blood deploys fades-to-black, it’s not like I actually know what happens between Alex Prime and anyone else. (And thank heavens for that, imagine if I’d had steamy scenes running through my head as I spoke to these people)

3. And no, Timmy didn’t count as a boyfriend. We only went to the eighth-grade school dance together because we were both Vietnamese and our parents told us to go with each other, and we only kissed because I didn’t know how else to say bye.

Oh God. I just realized. If I’m actually dead, then that kiss with Timmy will be the only one I’ve ever had in my real body. That’s too sad to even think about.