“I could’ve escaped, you know.”
My hand freezes mid-motion. I blink at him, caught off guard. “What?”
“The Archives. When it went down. That corridor wasn’t locked. The blast panels hadn’t dropped yet. I could’ve phased through the shield before it sealed.”
I stare at him, the full weight of his words hitting like a dropped stone in the pit of my stomach. “But… you didn’t.”
He tilts his head, eyes narrowing slightly. “Because you were there.”
The silence that follows is not empty. It’s thick. Viscous. Pressing against my skin and mind like some kind of invisible pressure front. I can’t breathe around it.
“That’s—” I start, then stop. What do you say to something like that? “That’s insane.”
“Is it?” he asks, calmly, like he’s asking the time. “Or is it the only sane thing I’ve done in a decade?”
I can’t look at him. Not directly. Instead, I focus on the flowers. Still bright, still wild. Too beautiful to be real. Like him.
“That’s not how people like you think,” I whisper.
“People like me?”
I force my gaze to meet his. “You kill people, Aebon. You order executions. Run rackets. I’ve seen the footage. I’ve seen what your boys leave behind. You don’t?—”
“—care?” he finishes for me. He’s not angry. Not even defensive. Just… steady. Unapologetic. “You’re wrong.”
“About what?”
He leans in, elbows on knees, voice low. “I care a lot. I just don’tregret.There’s a difference.”
The floor beneath me feels less certain. Like everything’s tilting.
“You risked your life,” I say, “to save mine.”
“I didn’t risk it,” he replies. “Ispentit. Deliberately.”
My breath catches.
This is madness.
But then why is my heart trying to beat its way out of my chest?
“You should’ve left me,” I murmur.
“I couldn’t.”
I close my eyes. “Why?”
The pause is long. When he finally speaks, his voice is so raw, I almost don’t recognize it.
“Because you’re the only thing in that whole godsdamn Ministry that isn’t corrupt or bought. And I’ve bled for less noble things.”
I don’t know how to process that. I don’twantto process that. I’ve built my entire life around certainty. Around rules and punishments and the false clarity of law.
But here he is.
This man who maims without blinking, who speaks violence like a native tongue… also shielded me with his own body.
And that contradiction is maddening.
