Shadow and Bone

He drank, staring into the fire, and then said, “All right. Ask
me.”
I blinked at him, taken aback. I wasn’t sure where to begin.
My tired mind had been brimming with questions, whirring in
a state between panic and exhaustion and disbelief since we’d
left Kribirsk. I wasn’t sure that I had the energy to form a
thought, and when I opened my mouth, the question that came
out surprised me.
“How old are you?”
He glanced at me, bemused.
“I don’t know exactly.”
“How can you not know?”
The Darkling shrugged. “How old are you exactly?”
I flashed him a sour look. I didn’t know the date of my
birth. All the orphans at Keramzin were given the Duke’s
birthday in honor of our benefactor. “Well, then, roughly how
old are you?”
“Why do you want to know?”
“Because I’ve heard stories about you since I was a child,
but you don’t look much older than I am,” I said honestly.
“What kind of stories?”
“The usual kind,” I said with some annoyance. “If you don’t
want to answer me, just say so.”
“I don’t want to answer you.”
“Oh.”
Then he sighed and said, “One hundred and twenty. Give or
take.”
“What?” I squeaked. The soldiers sitting across from me
glanced over. “That’s impossible,” I said more quietly.
He looked into the flames. “When a fire burns, it uses up the
wood. It devours it, leaving only ash. Grisha power doesn’t
work that way.”
“How does it work?”