Elias x Laia scenes (3/?)
“Maybe we don’t have to be Scholar slave and Mask.” I drop the dagger. “For tonight, maybe we can just be Laia and Elias.”
Emboldened, I reach out and pull at the edge of his mask, which has never seemed like a part of him. It resists, but now I want it off. I want to see the face of the boy I’ve been speaking to all night, not the Mask I always thought he was. So I pull harder, and the mask falls into my hands with a hiss. The back is bent into sharp spikes wet with blood. The tattoo on his neck glistens with a dozen small wounds.
“I’m so sorry,” I say. “I didn’t realize…”
He looks into my eyes, and something undefined burns in his gaze, a flash of emotion that brings a different sort of fire to my skin.
“I’m glad you took it off.”
