"I figured that part out." She met his gaze. "What I'm still figuring out is you."
"What do you want to know?" he found himself asking, and immediately regretted the invitation. Understanding led to connection, and connection led to vulnerability he couldn't afford.
But apparently, his mouth had other ideas about what was wise.
"More than you'd probably want to share," she said with a faint smile. "But I suppose we have time for that."
"We do," he agreed, though he wasn't entirely sure what he was agreeing to.
She turned her wine glass between her fingers, considering. "How old are you?"
"Old."
"That's not an answer."
"It's the only one I have. After a certain point, counting becomes irrelevant." He watched her file that away. "Time moves differently here. Years blur."
"That sounds sad.”
"It sounds like a fact."
"Those aren't mutually exclusive." She took a sip of wine. "What do you do? When you're not maintaining wards or terrifying courtiers?"
The question caught him off guard. No one had ever asked him that. His court feared him. The other Death Lords respected orresented him. None of them had ever wondered what he did with his time.
"I read," he said, and immediately felt foolish for the mundanity of it.
"You read." She didn't laugh, but something brightened in her expression. "The Reaper, Lord of the Forsaken, terror of the death realms. Reads."
"Extensively."
"What kind of books?"
"History. Philosophy. Poetry, occasionally." He shouldn't be telling her this. It served no strategic purpose. "The living world produces an extraordinary volume of literature about death. Most of it wrong. Some of it surprisingly insightful."
"You read human poetry about death." She was definitely smiling now. "That's either the most predictable thing I've ever heard or the least."
His shadows stirred, restless.
"What about you?" he asked, redirecting before she could dig further. "Before the stealing. What did you enjoy?"
The brightness dimmed. He watched her weigh the question, decide how much to risk.
"Books," she said finally. "My mother had a shelf of them. Novels mostly. Stories about people who lived in big houses and had problems that could be solved by marrying the right person." A pause. "I thought they were ridiculous. I read every single one."
The image of her as a child, curled up with romance novels, was so at odds with the sharp-edged woman across from him that his chest tightened.
"And now?"
"Now I haven't read anything in years. Books are heavy. Hard to steal, harder to carry, not worth much when you sell them." She said it lightly, but her fingers tightened on the glass. "You don't get to keep things when you live the way I did."
The silence that followed held weight. Two people who'd lost things. Different things, in different ways, but the shape of the absence was the same.
"My library is extensive," he said. "You're welcome to use it."
The words came out before he could consider them. An invitation he hadn't planned. His shadows tightened with alarm at his own lack of discipline.
She looked at him for a long moment. Her expression turned careful, searching—trying to determine whether the offer was genuine or another form of control.
