“Nineteen.” I scoot forward in my chair.“How old are you?”
“So, you’re nineteen.” He tilts his chin up an inch.“And you’re living with a twenty-five-year-old unmarried man.”
Instantly, my palms moisten, and my forehead prickles with heat.Ah, there it is. Something to be impressed about. He knows about Aurick. Or at least, he’s hinting at it.
I shrug.“Was there a question in the statement? He is my friend.”
A dark eyebrow arches.“Does he know that?”
“Yes.” I narrow my eyes. “But you so clearly have another opinion. Let’s hear it.”
But he doesn’t share it. Only continues to stare at me. He raises his chin, looks down at me, and the right corner of his mouth curls upward.
“Why did it take you so long to join me?” He asks. And something about his question clenches my heart in an iron fist to the point of pain.Join him. Find him in thishell.
“It wasn’t easy,” I say quietly. “I had to get through other rooms first to gain credibility.”
He stares at me as if I’m an insect he’s studying under a magnifying glass. I want to squirm under his hold. “And you chose to be in this room with me, yes?”
“Yes.” I nod.
“Even after you heard of what became of Sern.”
I gulp, and it’s an audible gurgle in my chest, causing a nearly undetectable smirk to form over his mouth. My cheeks burn in response as if I’ve fallen asleep in the sun.
“Especiallyafter I heard what happened to Sern,” I say.
“And why is that? Death wish? Or perhaps you have a fascination for danger.” His tone is bored and taunting at the same time. He’stryingto make me uncomfortable. Testing his limits. But I force myself to become an impassible rock in the center of a rushing current.
“Danger?” I say, urging my voice to sound confident. “I take it you’re pretty safe to be around, then. Consider me unafraid.”
His eyes widen in amusement. He lifts his chin, looking down at me with a new layer of curiosity. The subtle movement is like a dragon unfurling its wings.
“Give it time,” he whispers.
My thoughts are scattered wisps of smoke.
He gives me a solid moment of silence before I’m ready to respond. It gives me the time to gather the right questions. Ones that he may answer, as it could benefit him.
“Suseas told me that you have a core personality, but they haven’t seen him since you admitted yourself years ago. Does that mean he’s gone? Disappeared?”
Annoyance flashes across his face like a splash of ice water.
“I don’t care for that label.Corepersonality. That suggests that I am not real. I am not a person at all, but a mere extension of his mind.” The deep, irritated tone of his voice strains my neck and knots my stomach.
“I can respect that,” I utter, careful not to further upset him. “Educate me. What should I call it?”
That annoyance that lowered his lids in a stern scowl melts away.
“He was the previous host. I fully took over as host when we admitted ourselves.” Dessin shifts his hands over his thighs. The chains clank together loudly. “And he did not disappear. He’s simply—out of reach, safe in the inner world.”
“The inner world?”
“It’s the place in our mind an alter can live in peace, away from trauma.” He’s patient. The mask of the man that wanted to terrify Suseas is now on a leash.
Trauma. Something happened to make him like this.
A thought crosses his face, and he suddenly looks like he might laugh. “You’re going to ask what an alter means. It’s what you would call a personality. But it’s more than that. It’s an alter. An individual person.”
