“What’s…” I pause, unsure what I’m asking. “What’s happeningto you?”
He draws in an unsteady breath, stares at the ceiling. “Alistaire, tell me—tell me a story, will you?” His words come out ragged, like he’s begging for water. “Please.”
“I—” I freeze. “I don’t know any stories.” And I don’t think a story is going to fix whatever is happening to him. Maybe he’s searching for a distraction.
Jude lets out a breath and then struggles to pull in the next. “Right. I’ll tell you one, then.”
When he speaks, I’m swept into another world. His words weave into the cold air around us like a blanket, warm and sparkling. Each utterance paints a more vivid portrait in the darkness. I scoot closer, my ears eager to hear more, and he pauses.
“No, keep going,” I prompt, surprised how badly I want to know how it ends.
“I thought youhatedstories,” he taunts back. And he’s right, I do. Stories are bad. They’re lies.
But the way Jude tells stories, I wonder how I’ve lived a day without them.
“I think I hate them less when you tell them,” I say quietly.
He pauses, drained, then nods and goes on. When he’s done, his voice is tired, like spinning the tale has taken something from him. His breaths grow more strenuous, the glow around him wavering like a dwindling lantern.
My mouth opens, and the words, “Are you dying, Jude?” fall out a little too bluntly.
He doesn’t say anything for a moment. Then, finally, “Death is a matter of opinion, Alistaire. To die is to be forgotten. I imagine the world will never forget me.”
“In your opinion, are you dying?”
He sighs deeply, stares at the white scar across his palm. “Yes.”
I have a feeling Reality Suspension can’t fix whatever is happening to him.
Turning on my side, I face him and whisper, “Does it have to do with Sil? Him and that book he always carries.”
Jude winces. “Alistaire, if you care for me at all, you’ll tell him this little journey back was made in utter silence. You and I, we didn’t speak. Nothing ofnotehappened.”
A chill hovers over the words. He almost sounds frightened.
“I won’t tell,” I promise, wondering at what Sil might do.IsSil more powerful than the Players? I’m not entirely surewhathe is. “And I do,” I add, quieter. The words cling desperately to my throat, trying their hardest not to make it past my teeth. “Care for you.”
A lot, I think. Enough to follow him back to the Playhouse, if only to ensure Jude doesn’t face the consequences of leaving his post when I forced him to.
Jude’s brows shoot up; he’s apparently shaken free from whatever trance he’d found in his palm. “Now, don’t tell me that block of ice you call a heart has started to thaw,” he teases, turning to face me. “I imagine it would take someone entirely irresistible to dothat.”
I shove him, but he catches my hand, laughing, his fingers wrapping around mine. In one stubborn motion, he tugs both of our hands to his chest. The sudden shift drags me across the cold stone, narrows the gap between us. Jude’s eyes look more like stars this close, softer. Part of me waits for the usual unease to surface, to send prickles down my spine and swallow the warmth from my veins.
But that anger, that rattle of disgust, never surfaces. Only a rush that skitters up my veins, a feathery feeling that flickers in my chest when he tucks a loose lock of hair behind my ear. In spite of the bitter chill, Jude’s skin feels like he’s been standing over a fire for hours.
And I think maybe I’m done fighting. I don’t want to fight the weight of Jude’s arm falling over my shoulders, the warmth like summer sun that encircles me and pulls me into his chest, or the easy way he tucks his chin into my hair.
“Alistaire?”
I crane my neck up, waiting for another biting remark about that ice-cold heart of mine.
Instead, he says, “Why are you so angry? Really.”
Defensiveness rises in my shoulders, but this time, I catch it and coax the sharp words back down my throat. I’ve been asking myself the same question. “I don’t fit properly anywhere.” The words take a moment to find. “And it doesn’t feel fair. Like I’m this badly cut piece of a puzzle that doesn’t fit with the others.”
Jude considers my words, leans his head back into the wall. His chest rises and falls for several beats, the timbre of his voice lowering. “If you have to saw all your edges to fit, you’re probably in the wrong puzzle.” He looks down at me. “And no offense, but you have a lot of edges.”
“Do you ever feel that way?” I press. “Like the person you are doesn’t fit.”
