“Mmm-hmm,” he said.
“This was recent?”
A pause. “Yes.”
“How long have you been here?”
“Ten months.”
I chewed on that. Nearly a year. “But if you’ve been to ninety-eight territories, you can’t have stayed anywhere else for that long.”
“No. By the time my wanderings brought me here, I’d made myself into this and I liked it. It felt natural. Right. And, if I’m honest, I was curious about the nightmares. I’d heard the stories and...” He shrugged. “What can I say? I wanted every experience. Not just the pleasant ones.”
I refrained from gaping, but only just. “You came because youwantedto live through a nightmare?”
“Well, why not? At least, that’s what I thought. And then I had my first one and the confidence I’d spent a decade building fell apart so quickly. But I saw something there. Inside the eye of the storm.” Wonder snuck in, silvering his words. “I couldtastethe possibility. I thought...surely if I knew myself down to the molecule, if my self-belief was unflinching, if I could belong to myself in every sense, I might battle a nightmare and win. And I’d already worn so many faces. Played so many roles. But this was the most challenging yet. The most exhilarating. So I stayed, and made it my mission to conquer the storm.”
I scanned his reflection, dumbstruck. He perched at the edge of the bed, one elbow draped over a knee, the opposite palm propped against the mattress. The spare, hungry lines of his body radiated their usual power, yet I’d completely misinterpreted its source. Twice, now.
“It took me more than half a year,” he said, “but I managed.”
“But...that should’ve been impossible.”
He lapsed into a secretive half smile. Because clearly, it wasn’t.
The silence thickened to bursting. When I could stand it no longer, I pushed back from the vanity. This timeIwas the moth answering the beckoning shine of the flame. I went and stood before him, so awed I couldn’t think past my own amazement.
All his self-assurance was apparently...completely genuine.
No wonder my insults never affected him.
“I didn’t realize people like you existed,” I said.
“I could say the same.” He looked up at me, steady. So steady. “It’s funny. In plays, people are always risking themselves for others, but I’ve never actually met anyone with that kind of conviction. That kind ofloyalty. Not until you.”
Heat blossomed along my neck.
“It’s always men, too, in stories.” His smile turned wry. “I suppose it should come as no surprise that in reality, it’s women who have that kind of courage.”
I searched for words. “I think I’ve...catastrophically misjudged you.”
Silence. Consideration. Then, “I was no less guilty. I thought... Well, I thought what everyone else did, when I came here. That you were pampered. That everyone in this house was.”
We stared at one another. I held my breath, waiting, waiting, for...what? The hand that dangled between his knees twitched, his fingers flexing, but he made no move for me, nor I for him.
In the quiet, questions whined in my ears like diving mosquitoes. One landed to sting. “But if you’d spent time in Oceansgate, how come people didn’t know you in town last night?”
Slyness slid into his eyes. “Because. I didn’t spend those ten months in town. I spent them in the woods.”
“In thewoods? What, with the brigands?”
“They call themselves ‘liberators,’ thank you very much. But yes.”
Shock harpooned me to the floor. “Wait. So...you knew that woman, then, down in the cellar? Isthatwhy she called you ‘my lord?’”
His eyes flashed. “Mmm. Yes. Kyra’s always been...impetuous. I’m not surprised that she threatened you, but you should know that isn’t what the liberators are about. Redistributing resources, yes. Holding knives to people’s throats? No.”
I blinked at him. Blinked some more. “I don’t... Wow. Okay. You really were one of them.”
