“Yes.”
I look at my tea. “And you said nothing to worry about today.”
“There wasn’t. Not that day.”
“That’s a very careful way of putting it.”
He is quiet for a moment. Outside, a fox screams somewhere on the street, the way Bristol foxes do at four in the morning, completely unconcerned with shadow kings and exiled princes and the complicated business of telling the truth.
“I didn’t want to frighten you,” Hex says.
“I’m already frightened,” I say. “I’ve been frightened since you appeared in my bedroom. Frightened and in it anyway. There’s a difference between frightened and fragile, Hex.”
Something moves in his expression. “I know that.”
“Do you?”
He looks at me properly then, red eyes steady in the dark kitchen. “Yes,” he says. “I do. You held out your hand when you were frightened. You broke your own protections when you were frightened. You handled Peterson when you were frightened.” A pause. “I know you’re not fragile, Adam.”
“Then stop deciding what I need to know.”
He holds my gaze. “You’re right,” he says, and he sounds like it costs him something, like being wrong is not something he has extensive practice with. “I’m sorry.”
I drink my tea. He drinks his. The flat settles around us, creaking slightly the way old buildings do, as if the walls are adjusting to the weight of everything that has been said in them lately.
“Tell me about Dis,” I say.
Hex is quiet for a long moment. “What do you want to know?”
“Everything Night and Dark didn’t say in front of me.”
He almost smiles. Not quite. “That obvious?”
“You all went very careful and diplomatic when I asked who he was. Night and Dark don’t strike me as people you need to be diplomatic to.”
“They’re not.” He sets down his mug. “Dis is complicated. He was not born to royalty. He came from nothing in the Shadow Realm, which is not an easy thing. He was recruited young by the people who wanted my father gone, and my father was genuinely a bad king, so I understand why he believed in it.” His jaw tightens. “But the regime that replaced my father is worse. And Dis has been their weapon for a long time now. He sits on my throne because they put him there and because he has nowhere else to go.”
I think about that. “You almost sound sympathetic.”
“I’m not.” The words are flat and final. “He bound my powers. He sent me here to fade. Whatever his reasons, whatever his circumstances, he made his choices and I made mine.” A pause. “But he is not stupid, and he is not simply cruel. He is dangerous in a way that is harder to fight than straightforward ruthlessness.”
“Because you can’t predict him.”
“Because he is capable of being reasonable. And reasonable enemies are the most frightening kind.”
I sit with that for a while. Outside the sky is doing the very first thing it does before dawn, not light yet, but a faint suggestion that light is a thing that exists and might eventually return. The fox has moved on. The city is as quiet as Bristol ever gets.
“You’re strong enough to go back,” I say. “Aren’t you.”
It comes out level. I’m quite proud of that.
Hex doesn’t answer immediately. That is answer enough.
“Night said as much,” I continue. “Not in so many words. But that’s what he meant. The reason Dis is moving now, is because you’re strong enough to be a real threat. You’ve recovered enough.”
“Yes,” says Hex.
“So you could go.”
