Maybe he didn’t know what Giselle had said. Or maybe he was testing her. Or had Giselle been testing her? Had she just betrayed her roommate? Hailey shookher head. All this business with Fin—she was definitely projecting her mistrust onto Asher, onto Giselle…plus all that talk of murder had her head swimming…
She trusted Asher. Since childhood, she’d trusted him. She couldn’t bear to think he’d hurt anyone, and she didn’t want him angry at Giselle. She had to tell him the truth.
“Giselle told me you killed a student, and she’s afraid you’ll…kill her, too…for telling me.”
Raindrops landed steadily on the rocky landscape in gentleplopsexploding in tiny bursts of squiggly flashes as Asher considered her, and Hailey continued her plea.
“I feel so alone here, and Giselle’s the only student that’s talked to me. I feel awful, Asher, I just… I don’t want her to get in trouble for talking to me.”
“You ask a lot of me, Hailey. There is much you don’t understand.”
“Then explain it to me.”
Asher closed his eyes, and a peal of thunder, sounding more like breaking glass rang out.
“Giselle disobeyed me. If I don’t punish her, I’ll quickly lose control of the other Earth dwellers, and you will not be safe here.”
Hailey shook her head.
“Nobody will know what she told me. Nobody talks to her. They all avoid her like they avoid me. I need a friend, Asher. Please.”
“Giselle is an abomination, and if she threatens you, I will kill her. But I will overlook this one instance of defiance because you wish it.”
Smiling her relief, Hailey wiped her face.
“I think she’s warming up to me.” She tried to touch Asher’s hand through the sheer light surrounding him, but of course, there was no hand, and Hailey sighed with frustration.
“There’s so much I want to ask you, but I won’t remember any of this, will I?”
“Ask me, Hailey. Ask me anything and I’ll answer. But we are in the Aether, so you may forget all this when you wake.”
“Is it true, then? Did you kill a student?”
“I’ve killed several.”
Hailey’s lungs failed, and for what seemed like too long, she stared at him, heart hammering until she finally breathed her worst fear. “You’re a… a murderer…?”
“It is not murder to dispose of a wretch,” said Asher quickly, reaching out to her.
She side-eyed him, and he dropped his arm.
“I’ve never ended a human life before its time. Where I come from, such an act is unthinkable.”
“What about the Envoy that killed Holly? What about Cobon?”
“He did not kill her before her time. He influenced a few wretched humans to injure her until it was her time.”
“That’s splitting hairs, don’t you think?”
“Many of the Envoys no longer follow our laws,” said Asher forcefully, and he turned away.
“Are you alright?” Hailey asked.
“Not at all,” he said without facing her. “I’m sorry I—I’m sorry I could not help Holly,” he said with shame in his voice. “And… I’m afraid. I fear that you will hate me. I fear that I’ll lose you,” he whispered.
Still the rain tinkled, teeny crystals shattering against the rocks, and Hailey drew a deep breath.
“Uncle Pix taught us that all things can be forgiven,” she said, her voice wavering, and Asher turned his head slightly.
