“You assume a lot of me,” I say, and by that I mean he assumes my gratitude, my friendship too.
“I assume you are what you look like when you think no one is watching you...” He glances at the camera.
Oh God, does he watch me then? Does he dial in on odd occasions like so many Lords, and watch as their little captive mulls about in the confined space she’s trapped inside?
“…which is to say, ferocious.”
That word seems to spark the fire in my heart, in my soul. I love it and I hate him for knowing exactly how those syllables will make me feel, for manipulating me in such an easy fucking way. God, I’m a fool.
“Ferocious,” I repeat, and put the book to the side with more care than I want him to see.
He leans back. The chair is too modern to creak, but I wonder if the wood understands the metaphorical weight of the man it is supporting. Thrones have carried less. Tombs have honoured less.
“Tell me what shapes the day for you. Humour me.” He says.
“Morning prayers, then beatings, then duels at dawn.” I shrug out my response as the traitorous beginnings of a smile creep across my face.
He smiles for the humour and waits for the reality. He is good at waiting. I’m certain he knows exactly how to make everyone spill themselves open to fill his carefully crafted silences.
“I wake when the lights tell me to wake,” I say. “I drink water that pretends to be clean when we all know it is laced with a sedative to keep me calm. I eat calories that pretend to be a lovingly made meal. I walk around the room until I can put my body back where my brain thinks it is. And I count the sounds Mrs Vale makes when she thinks I am sleeping.”
“Do you sleep?” he asks. His voice loses its public roundness; it becomes narrow, like a passage.
“I acquire unconsciousness,” I say. “Sometimes there are hours when the walls of my cell are obedient, and stay far enough away that it doesn’t feel like they’ll crush me with their weight.”
“And Gideon Harrow?” He says his name as if it is an object we should examine on a table.
“Gone.” The word dissolves; it leaves residue like a paracetamol that hasn’t properly broken down. “I do not blame him for being what he is. I blame the world for creating the situation in the first place.”
I am too proud to mourn him the way I would mourn a dog. I mourn the idea that I cannot afford to despise the men I depend on.
He is looking at my left hand again. I curl it in, hiding the offending finger.
“Do you want me to tell you it is for the best?” he asks.
“No,” I say. “I want you to tell me what you want with me. Comfort doesn’t help me, so why are you giving it to me? Why are you here, wasting your precious time with the condemned?”
He looks amused and a little delighted by my audacity. I have always been a good girl to him, a polite child that was smart enough to quietly disappear when the adults talked. Maybe my newfound personality is a surprise. Afterall, they stripped away all the colour in my life. They stripped away my parents, my friends, everything that clicked together and created a world for me to live in. Is he curious that instead of folding up, I’ve instead transformed, like paper into origami?
“I am using it as a tool,” he says, leaning forward like a conspirator, dropping his voice enough that it lures me into believing he doesn’t want to be overheard. “I am a man who prefers to be effective. A little comfort, well applied, can alter the shape of a day. Sometimes that is all one needs to move the world.”
“To move me where?”
“Into a place where the air is not poison,” he says simply. “You are surrounded by people whose job is to administer doses of annihilation. It is not good policy to allow a mind like yours to be smothered. It makes messes that are difficult to fix later.”
“You are very concerned with messes.”
“I am very concerned with you,” he says in such a tone I think my heart stops.
Why? Why does he care?
He’s the one who put me here. Does he see me as some surrogate daughter? Does he see me as some replacement for my mother and because he could not save her, now he’s set his sights on somehow emancipating me?
“My mother chose my father,” I say sharply.
“Yes,” he says meeting my gaze with something unreadable in his eyes. “She chose your father and made a logical choice at the time. He was brave where it mattered. He was foolish too. He…” He stops, as if the memory is a taste in his mouth he has learned not to make a face at.
“She told me once that your hands were always cold, just like your heart.” I say. It is a lie. She did not say those exact words, but I want to see what he will do when I poke the monster. I have to see where the boundaries are.
