“Here, Alizeh,” he said patiently. “Not this room. What are you doinghere, in my wing of the castle? All this time I’ve been operating under the assumption that you snuck in when the maid opened the door, but now I’m just... confused.”
At that, Alizeh went still.
She was quiet for a long, tense moment before she said, finally, “You don’t rememberanyof it?”
Twenty-Nine
CYRUS STARED AT HER, HISconfusion transforming into something like fear. “Remember any of what?”
His stricken expression inspired a pang in her heart, for the insensible organ had no brain and could not be reasoned with. Alizeh wasangrywith him, and still she softened.
“You don’t remember,” she said, “what happened in the flower field?”
There was a long beat during which Cyrus averted his eyes, his throat working. “I do remember,” he said finally.
“What’s the last thing you remember?”
“What do you mean?” He did not look up.
“Well, do you remember talking to me?”
“Yes,” he whispered.
“And then?”
“And then,” he said, and sighed, looking suddenly, intensely uncomfortable. “Then, I experienced some pain.”
She hated the way he said it, hated the way his voice hollowed out. As if his suffering were something inconsequential and fleeting, as if it weren’t actual torture, as if she hadn’t sat there and watched as blood dripped down his closed eyes and into his open, screaming mouth.
“I think it was a fair amount worse than that,” said Alizeh.
“I don’t know what you saw.”
“A great deal,” she said quietly. “I saw a great deal.”
He nodded, a muscle jumping in his jaw. He still wouldn’t look at her. “Interesting,” he said flatly. “I didn’t realize you’d seen anything at all.”
Alizeh hesitated at his tone, not knowing how to interpret his words. “I’m sure,” she ventured, “that I couldn’t even begin to imagine the depth of what you suffered. But I was there, I saw everything—”
“You,” he said, attempting a wry smile, “werenotthere.”
Alizeh actually flinched, she was so surprised.
She didn’t know whether to react to the fact of his statement being patently false—or whether to wonder at the undertone of an accusation in his voice. That he thought she’d abandoned him was strange enough—but that he wasupsetabout it?
Had she somehow managed to hurt Cyrus’sfeelings?
This, she struggled to fathom.
“Don’t misunderstand me,” he went on, studying the middle distance. “I don’t blame you for leaving—in fact, it’s quite understandable, considering the circumstances, for it must’ve been not only an unpleasant viewing, but an excellent opportunity to be rid of me—”
“You have it entirely wrong,” she said with some heat. “I was there the whole time.”
Finally, he looked up, perplexed even as he shook his head. “Why would you challenge this? Alizeh, when I came to, you were gone. I brought myself back to the palace alone—”
“How would I have left?” she asked, cutting him off. “Wewere in the middle of nowhere.”
“I don’t know,” he said dismissively, as if this were a trivial point. “You are not without your own resources. You have supernatural speed—clearing a couple of miles wouldn’t take you very long, and if you walk far enough through the field, there’s access to the main road. The castle is quite visible in the distance. I assumed you snuck back in here only to retrieve your book before running away.”
