"It's nice," I say, which is inadequate but what else do you say about a tower room with perfect sight lines? The room is magnificent. Curved walls, windows on multiple sides, enough space for shadows and brooding and whatever else he does when no one's watching. The curtains need cleaning though. When were these last washed?
"I can see all entrance points." He doesn't turn. "Defensible position."
"Also excellent light for reading." I move closer, noticing built-in shelves that are crying out for books. "When's the last time you read something that wasn't a death warrant or territory agreement?"
"Can't remember."
"We should fix that. Books are important. Entertainment that doesn't involve calculating murder angles." I'm beside him now, looking out at grounds that need work but have potential. Someone had a garden once. You can see the skeleton of it under the weeds. "There's even a garden. Or what used to be one. We could grow things. Living things that we don't have to kill."
"Olivia."
"We could grow vegetables. Fresh ones. Tomatoes taste completely different when they're actually ripe, not shipped from somewhere and disappointed—"
"Olivia."
I stop. He's looking at me now with that expression that means he's thinking too hard about something that should be simple.
"This is real," he says quietly. "We live here now."
"Is that bad?"
"I don't know how to live somewhere." He turns back to the window, and the afternoon light catches the exhaustion he usually hides better. "I know how to occupy. Control. Defend. But live? With gardens and matched plates and bathroom schedules?"
"You'll learn. We all will." I touch his arm gently, and his shadows immediately pool around my feet like attention-seeking cats. "It's just a house. A big house with too many rooms and pretentious architecture, but still just a house."
"I bought it without looking." The admission comes out rough. "The merchant was terrified, named a price, I paid it. Didn't even ask about the roof."
"The roof looks solid. I checked from outside while you were terrifying Davis about defensive positions."
"You checked the roof."
"Someone had to. You were too busy being efficiently threatening." His shadows are warm around my ankles now, which probably means something but I'm not sure what. "Why didn't you look?"
"Because you wanted it." He says it simply, like buying an entire estate sight-unseen because I got excited about bathrooms makes perfect sense.
"That's... that's a lot of trust in my housing opinions."
"You were happy. About the bathrooms. The charts. The democracy I'm pretending doesn't exist." He turns to face me fully, and there's something raw in his expression. "Do you know how long it's been since anyone in my guild was happy about anything?"
"They were happy about the soup."
"That was different. That was surprise. This was..." He gestures vaguely at the window, at the house, at everything. "Hope. They had hope. Because of bathroom schedules."
"Seven bathrooms is very hope-inspiring."
He almost smiles, and my chest does something warm and ridiculous. "You're doing it again."
"What?"
"Making everything seem manageable. Possible. Like we could just... live. In a house. With gardens."
"You can. We can." I realize how close we're standing. When did that happen? His shadows are wrapping around us both now. "Everyone deserves somewhere safe. Even people who professionally make others unsafe."
"I killed the previous owner's cousin once."
"That's nice. Did you see the library? There's a library. With built-in shelves and everything."
He stares at me. "I tell you about murder and you respond with library enthusiasm."
