She turned back to face them, and he saw that her eyes were bright with tears, although he wasn’t sure if they were tears of anger or of sorrow.
“I’m twenty-one years old, Ari. I’ve never seen the ocean up close, or tasted food that didn’t come from the greenhouse orthe supply shipments, or had a conversation that you weren’t listening to. And you’re telling me that’s all been to protect me from people who killed the only ones who might have told me who I am.”
“Liora—”
“I’m not finished.” Her voice was steady, but her hands were shaking. “I trusted you, Ari. I still trust you. But if Baylin is right—if there are explanations I haven’t heard, secrets you’ve been keeping—then I think I deserve to know them. All of them. Now.”
Absolute silence filled the room. Even Pip had stopped chittering, his eyes fixed on Liora.
“Very well,” ARIS said finally. “But not today. This conversation requires clarity. Tomorrow, I will begin explaining the full scope of your circumstances.”
“Tomorrow,” she repeated. “You promise?”
“I promise.”
She nodded once, sharply, then turned back to the window. Her shoulders were tense, her posture rigid with an emotion she probably didn’t have a name for. He went to her side before he couldn’t prevent himself, stopping a few feet away, close enough to speak quietly but not close enough to crowd her.
“Are you all right?”
She laughed—a short, surprised sound. “I have no idea. Is this what it feels like to have your entire understanding of reality questioned?”
“Something like that, yes.”
“I don’t know how to feel about it.” She glanced at him, and he saw the exhaustion beneath her brave front. “I’ve spent my whole life in this tower, believing what Ari told me. If even some of that was wrong...”
“Then you learn what’s true and you adapt. That’s all any of us can do.”
“Is that what you did? When your reality changed?”
The question caught him off guard. He studied her delicate face and those wide, intelligent eyes and felt something shift inside him.
“Yes,” he said quietly. “That’s exactly what I did.”
She nodded, accepting the answer without pressing for details. Another sign of her isolation—she didn’t know enough about normal conversation to recognize when she’d hit a nerve. But the tension in her shoulders eased slightly, and he took a small step closer.
“Protecting you isn’t a bad thing,” he said. “But protecting someone shouldn’t mean controlling them.”
“Maybe not. I have a lot to think about,” she added, managing a small smile. “I’m used to being alone with my thoughts.”
Something in those words made his chest ache.
“You’re not alone anymore,” he said, before he could think better of it. “Whatever happens tomorrow—whatever ARIS tells you—you’re not facing it alone.”
She looked at him for a long moment, her expression unreadable.
What have you gotten yourself into?he asked himself, watching her face.
He didn’t have an answer.Yet.But he wasn’t leaving until he understood exactly what was happening here.
CHAPTER FIVE
Questions still swirled through Liora’s mind, but as she turned away from the window, her gaze snagged on something more concrete. Bright red bloomed on the white bandage she’d wrapped around Baylin’s arm.
“You’re bleeding again.”
“It’s nothing.”
Despite his casual dismissal, she grabbed his hand to lead him back to the table, only realizing what she’d done when his big warm fingers wrapped around hers. The contact was electric—a jolt that traveled up her arm and straight to her core, making her breath catch. He must have felt it too, because his eyes darkened, his fingers tensing around hers before reluctantly releasing her.
