“You don’t understand what you’re dealing with,” he said, his voice lower now, though the urgency beneath it hadn’t gone anywhere.
“He’s not who you think he is, Eliza,” he said, speaking my name for once as if it would help in getting through to me. Something in my chest tightened at that.
“I know exactly who he is,” I replied, a little too quickly, because the idea of Bo standing there, in this room, telling me otherwise, didn’t sit right with me. Not after everything I had seen. Everything I had felt.
Bo’s jaw shifted slightly, like he was biting back whatever his first response might have been. His gaze dragged over me for a moment before settling again.
“No,” he said quietly, though there was nothing uncertain about it.
“You only know what he’s shown you.”
The words sank in deeper than I wanted them to. So, I shook my head slightly, more to push away the thought than anything else.
“I can talk to him,” I said, the idea forming as I spoke it, even if I hadn’t fully thought it through yet.
“I can fix this. He doesn’t have to see you as a threat. I can make him understand, get him to let you stay.” Bo let out a slow breath at that, not quite a sigh, though it carried the same weight.
“It doesn’t work like that,” he said, his voice steady, but there was something else there now. Something closer to concern.
“You think he’s going to listen when it matters? When it’s you on the line?” That gave me pause, and just enough for doubt to slip in where I didn’t want it.
“What is that supposed to mean?” I asked, quieter now, though the tension in my voice hadn’t eased. He held my gaze for a second longer than necessary, like he was weighing how much to say. How far to push before I shut down completely.
“It means that the second he realizes you’re not what he thinks you are… everything changes,” he said slowly, carefully, and my breath caught slightly at that, my heart hammering in my chest.
“What do you mean, what he thinks I am?” I asked, the question slipping out before I could stop it.
But Bo didn’t answer straight away.
And somehow…That was worse.
Or at least I thought it was.
But I was wrong. And evidently,so was Wye.
I knew that when Bo told me,
“You’re not his Siren, and I can prove it.”
17
REFLECTIONS
The words didn’t just land. They cut…deep.
Much deeper than I ever imagined they would. Because I had been the one already convincing myself that Wye might be wrong about who I was to him and now I was right. But there was no victory in it whatsoever. Because it also confirmed that the feelings he had for me were based on a lie, whereas mine were based on truth. As I knew exactly who Wye was, and yet I had fallen for him anyway.
For a second, I didn’t react at all. My body was still in a way that felt almost unnatural. Because it wasn’t just what Bo had said, it was the certainty behind it. The fact that he hadn’t hesitated. Hadn’t softened it. Hadn’t even looked like he expected me to argue.
Which, of course, I did.
“But what if you’re wrong,” I said, the denial coming quickly, instinctively, even as something uncomfortable continued to twist low in my chest.
“You don’t know that. You can’t know for sure.”
Bo didn’t move straight away, but something in his expression shifted. Something close to grim resolve, like he hadalready expected this exact response and had come prepared for it.
“I can,” he said simply and then he stepped forward closing the space between us.
