“What do you think he’d say? Am I crazy for loving him?”
“You’re not crazy.” My father, though young here, has infinite wisdom in his gaze. “People can change. Trauma does strange things, and no one handles it the same way.”
“What should I do then?”
Kane’s shoulders tense as he puts more thought into it.
“Keep loving him,” he says.
My nostrils sting like I’ve inhaled cold air too fast. I blink against the shimmering vision.
“Why does this make you sad?”
“Because I’ve left him in a terrible place. And I don’t know how to get back to him.”
Kane’s chocolate brown eyes dart from one side of the library to the other. He lifts his hands to emphasize the location I’ve currently found myself in.
“Look where you are. It seems to me he’s the one who needs to come save you.”
I chuckle. “It looks that way, doesn’t it?”
He lifts his chin and stares at me with a rising suspicion behind those cautious eyes.
“You are more concerned for his life than yours at the moment?” Disbelief hangs on his expression.
“Yes.”
“Either you don’t understand the danger you are in, or he’s in a place that might as well be the Vexamen Prison.” Kane reads the expression on my face like a book. “You are aware of the danger you’re in then.”
Unsure of how much I should share with him, I nod.
“Is your sweetheart in the Vexamen Prison?” he asks again.
I stare at him.
“Hmm.” He pushes off the bookshelf to pace the rug in front of me. “You’re intriguing one of the alters in my head. He really likes puzzles.”
I smile. He’d have a ball with the truth I can’t share.
“If you know the danger you’re in, then you know this is the end of the road for you. Saving your sweetheart isn’t going to happen. You seem like a wise young woman. Intellectual beyond your years. You must understand that…”
“I am not going to die here,” I tell him firmly.
Kane stops pacing.
“I understand I’m being used as some kind of bait in an experiment involving you.”
He raises his eyebrows and freezes.
“But you’re not going to hurt me.”
Turning away, Kane says, “I won’t have a choice.”
If only you knew who I am to you. Who I’ll be to you one day. Why I remind you of your sweetheart, Skylenna, so much.
I look around the library, itching to tell him everything, but settling on another route. A stack of books on the table behind Kane gives me an idea.
“You read all of those?” I point with my chin.
