I pushed back. “You—”
“Don’t move.”
To my surprise, I stilled. “Why?”
He was quiet, then he let out a breath. “How much does it hurt?”
“What? My chest?” I asked, moving my head to look up at him. His gaze fell on my face and I nearly choked, still not used to having all his attention on me, especially while caged in his arms. “I’m going to see the doctor when I get out of here—”
“Not my question.”
I blinked, letting the rude interruption pass through me. “I’m fine. It doesn’t hurt that much.” I averted his gaze when it became too intense for me to hold.
I could be imagining it, but his grip tightened. “Don’t lie to me.”
I was about to stare straight into his eyes and tell him I wasn’t, but I saw the ground where my shadow stretched, and it hit me again that he didn’t have one. Abruptly, I pushed myself out of his space, so hard my back hit Weeny Man’s door, disturbing the doorbell inside.
Gosh, how could I forget he wasn’t...normal. I’d given into his arms naturally without thinking twice.
Looking at the ground, he saw what had made me act out but his expression didn’t shift a fraction. He only sighed like I was a poor thing afraid of nothing and began walking down the street.
Scowling, I marched after him. “My question for today—why don’t you have a shadow. You claim to be human but everyone has a shadow.”
“Really? Have you seen all of humanity?”
“The majority I’ve seen do.” I crossed my arms. “So why don’t you have one?”
“Because it was taken away.”
“By who?”
“Two questions.”
Speechless, I stammered in surprise. “What—what...I didn’t—that’s unfair. I didn’t even ask anything!”
“I don’t have a shadow because it was taken away,” he said simply.
“By whom?Of course you don’t have a shadow because it was taken away. You don’t just wake up on a random day of the week, bump your fucking head on the wall and your shadow starts running away from you,” I said in one breath.
He glanced back over his shoulder with a faint smirk. “Who said?”
What?I gave him the look.
“You haven’t had breakfast.”
“And you haven’t answered my question.”
His steps quickened, as if he couldn’t spend one more second with me, and I had to juggle between jogging and walking to keep up.
“Tomorrow.”
“That is another day for another question. Okay. At least tell me why you’re hot.”
“You think I’m hot?” There was a faint smugness in his voice.
Yes.“No, gods. Not hot-hot.Body temperaturehot. Why did it feel like you were on fire a while ago.”
“Because the cold in Nimorran wants to kill me.”
