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I want to ask. I do not. Not here, with the window above us still dark and my blood still cooling from the edge of violence.
“Tomorrow,” I say.
“If I do not come, do not come looking for me.”
The words hit badly. “I can’t promise that.”
“You must.”
“I won’t lie to you.”
Her eyes hold mine, and for once her composure falters just enough to let frustration through. “Corin, if I am delayed, watched, or confined, you coming after me blindly gives Vaerith exactly what he wants.”
“And leaving you there gives him what he already has.”
The silence between us tightens.
She looks away, and the movement is small but telling. “I am not asking you to abandon me.”
“No. You’re asking me to be strategic while every instinct I have is learning your name as a prayer and a warning.”
Her breath catches.
I did not mean to say it like that. I did not mean to say it at all.
The bond responds, sending warmth through my chest so intense it almost hurts. Isolde steadies herself with one hand against the damp wall, her eyes closing for half a second as if she has to gather herself from several directions at once.
When she opens them, her voice is quieter. “Then be strategic for me.”
That reaches places anger cannot.
I nod once, because anything more elaborate might break in my mouth. “Tomorrow. Drainage arcade. If you can.”
“If I can.”
She turns to leave, then pauses near the mouth of the passage. “Corin.”
“Yeah?”
“If you truly wanted to be what Vaerith thinks you are, Talen would be dead.”
She does not wait for my answer.
She steps into the rain and disappears into the moving gray of the street, cloak blending with the weather until only the bond tells me where she went. I remain in the passage long after she is gone, staring at the dark scrying glass above the shuttered office.
Vaerith wanted a monster.
I flex my aching hand and feel the last ember of hunger retreat beneath my skin, contained but not conquered. The thing in me is still awake. It is still listening. It still wants, and now it has a name to wrap itself around.
The mirror remains black.
I smile at it anyway, because if he is watching, he should at least understand one thing.
I am not as easy to aim as he thinks.
6
ISOLDE
