The carpet is soft. There’s wind and the noise of the street. Well, the halls, but you know what I mean. There’s food. There are people.
“There are no elements wandering around. There are no true names floating in the air like signposts. It’s normal—it’s normal, but it’s less—”
“Clean?”
“Maybe. Less simple. Everything there was absolute. To speak to any of it—elements, emptiness—I had to be as absolute as I could. I didn’t have time to be afraid.”
“You were afraid.”
She grimaced. “Yes, but on most days I have a half-dozen different fears pulling me in different directions; I balance them.”
“So, you’re afraid?”
“No!” She paused and looked up at his face again. “…Maybe.”
“Can you tell me what you’re afraid of?”
“On the wrong day? My own shadow.” It was a dodge, and he knew it. “…I’m not good at this. I suck at talking about anything really important.”
“You asked me why I love you.”
She nodded; she could hardly forget that.
“Can I ask you the same question?”
“Severn—”
“Why do you love me?”
She wanted to lie then. It was such a visceral reaction, her mouth was open and words were almost falling out. But she held them, offering different words in their stead. “Because you’ve always been there for me. Even, apparently, when I didn’t know it. There’s nothing you’ve got that you wouldn’t give me if I asked for it. You know me. You understand me. You’ve seen me at my worst, and you’re still here.” She sucked in air. “You’ll never ask me to do anything I can’t do. You’d never ask me to do anything that would hurt me. You’re stronger than I am, Severn. You always have been.
“I admire it. I…rely on it, even when I shouldn’t.”
“Kaylin, you think relying on anyone is proof that you’re worthless.”
“No—I don’t. I don’t anymore. I did. It’s true. But…if we can’t rely on each other some of the time, there’d be no point.”
“No point?”
“No point in people existing at all. There’d be just one thing. If what I heard was true, that’s all there was for a long time.”
“Then I don’t see the problem.”
“No, you don’t.” She rose and began to pace. “And I—I’m not good at talking.”
He waited, because he was good at waiting. “Are you afraid of losing me?”
“Yes. But not because you leave. Because you’ll die.” Gods, she hated this. She was squirming, he knew it. “I’m afraid,” she finally said in as neutral a voice as she could manage, “that you want me.”
“Want?”
“Want. Desire.”
He stared at her. This was different from watchfulness. “You’re not afraid of wanting me.”
“…No.”
“But you don’t.”
She walked to the window. Touched it with both her palms, framing the three Towers of Law that formed the triangular structure she called home. “It’s not that I don’t,” she finally said. “But I’m not afraid of what I want. No—sometimes I am, but not in that way. I’m not afraid of what it will do to me.”
“And to me?”
She shook her head. “I don’t have a lot of experience,” she finally said. “But the experience I do have—it’s all bad, Severn.” Swallowing, throat becoming drier by the syllable, she made herself continue, because it was important. “If I had been prettier, if I had been more helpless, I would have been forced into one of Barren’s brothels. If Morse hadn’t found me, if someone else had found me first—
“I know that life. I understand what it means. I understand what sex is between the girls who weren’t as lucky and the men who see them as something to buy. It’s about power, it’s about money, it’s about—sex.”
“Kaylin—”
“No, let me finish, because I don’t know that I’ll ever be able to say this again. For those girls, that’s all it is. If they love anyone, if they can, they mostly love each other because men are just business, or far worse. There’s no room in that for anything else.
“I didn’t have to suffer that.” She closed her eyes, blocking out the Halls of Law—and the temerity of her own transparent reflection. “I had Barren,” she said in a much lower voice. “I don’t—I can’t—talk about that. Not directly. Not yet. But you understand what I mean, right?”
He was silent.
“I didn’t want him. I never did. He was everything ugly to me, everything I feared. Everything I would have run from if I could. I can’t think why I didn’t. I would never be so afraid of him now. But—I wasn’t me, then.
“I remember him so well. I have nightmares about him. But I did what he wanted me to do because he wanted me to do it. I killed people because he wanted it. I—” She wanted to choke. “I can still see his face. When I think of—when I—it’s his face. It’s his expression. I don’t know if it was desire. I think it was. It was certainly about power. His, my lack. It was always about power.” She opened her eyes again. She could see echoes of her face, of her distant, thirteen-year-old face, in the glass.
“…I’m afraid. Of seeing that. Of seeing that desire on anyone else’s face. It’s me I don’t trust.”
“Kaylin—”
“I tried,” she continued, not looking at him. “When I was seventeen. I tried. We’d gone out together, we’d done a little drinking. I was attracted to him. I did want to be with him. He knew it; I knew it. We went back to his place—it was about the same size as mine.
“And he kissed me, and that was fine—it was awkward, but it was fine. But…there was more. I—I froze, and then I…I couldn’t stop myself. I broke his jaw. Teela thought it was funny. I panicked, I—he didn’t speak to me again for two months, and I don’t blame him. It’s just I—it’s what I saw. It’s what I saw in his expression. And he was a nice guy, Severn. He was a nice, decent guy. I knew he wasn’t Barren. I wasn’t thirteen. I wasn’t helpless, and I had a choice.
“But knowing all that didn’t matter. I couldn’t look at him. I couldn’t see that look on his face, that expression. I just—” She hit the glass hard. Nothing happened. “I don’t want to see that in you.” She turned then.
He was still standing, still watching her. “And Nightshade?”
It
