“Made it easier to believe?” Ehlian caught the odd phrasing. “It is believable. Core signatures can’t be faked.”
At least not perfectly. Some inmates still tried, but their clumsy attempts were caught quickly.
Aric didn’t reply. He let Ehlian’s words hang in the air, as though he didn’t want their conversation go beyond this point.
“I mean,” Ehlian couldn’t let it go. “If you had nothing to do with it, wouldn’t you and Hayce have fought to admit your memory from that day?”
“How did that work out for you?” Aric’s eyes skimmed over the other inmates. “Or any of them?”
It hadn’t. Memories were rarely admissible. They were too easily altered, manipulated into a different truth. Most ofthe time, they were unreliable. After too many criminals had provided falsified memories and walked free, the new law had made it nearly impossible to admit memories as evidence. And even when telepaths could preserve them longer and sharper than most betas, memory still dulled over time—fragmented, blurred, bias creeping in slowly.
Core signatures, on the other hand, were stable. And Hayce’s had been everywhere, just like Ehlian’s own after he forced his way into his uncle’s mind.
“Core signatures still can’t be perfectly recreated by anyone,” Ehlian said. “So why are you—”
“No more questions,” Aric cut in. “If Hayce wants to tell you more, he will.”
He wouldn’t. It was pointless for Ehlian to even try.
When he was back in the cell and the alarm blared for curfew, Hayce was still nowhere to be seen. Inmates were allowed an hour of visiting time. Just how much money had Hayce sunk into the guards’ pockets to make the rules bend around him?
For a while, he sat in the armchair, reading Hayce’s book, but he kept glancing towards the door. Why was Hayce taking so long?
Ah, who cared? It wasn’t like Ehlian was attached to him.
He didn’t want to get attached to him.
He flipped the book closed, and Hayce’s bookmark slipped free, falling to the floor. It was a torn strip of white paper. But when he bent to pick it up, the thickness beneath his fingers gave him pause. He turned it over.
A photo.
It was a faded family portrait, Hayce and his sister standing at their father’s side. It must have been taken sometime after their mother’s death, but she wasn’t the only one missing from the frame. The photo had been viciously torn along the sister’sside, as though Hayce had tried to make sure nothing remained of the fourth member of their family. Yet he hadn’t quite succeeded. A small fragment of an elbow still clung stubbornly to the edge, disrupting the fragile harmony Hayce had tried to create by erasing him.
Sandar Cartivair. His brother. It couldn’t be anyone else.
Ehlian’s mind reeled. Why would Hayce keep a photo of his father—the very man he had killed—handled with such care, such quiet tenderness? Like he was trying to preserve the echo of a long-lost happiness.
None of it made sense.
The longer he stared at the shattered family portrait, the more he felt Hayce despise his own brother.
When the lights went out in the cell, Ehlian put back the photo in the book and forced himself to stop thinking about Hayce. He didn’t want to dig deeper. He shouldn’t dig deeper. It wasn’t his business, and the smartest choice was to stay well clear of it.
He quickly undressed and pulled on his nightwear, the cold air biting at his skin. He hated when the prison slipped into the shadow of Arox. The temperatures plummeted, and the heating was only just enough to keep the chill at bay. The thick blanket offered some relief, but his feet were always cold.
Once in bed, an unsettling feeling pressed down on his chest. He couldn’t find his place, despite having spent the past four months in the same bed. The cell felt oddly empty and cold.
His hope flickered when he heard a noise from the direction of the door… footsteps, approaching, then passing. Silence again. Probably just a guard patrolling the floor.
What if something had gone wrong? What if the visitor was Hayce’s brother, and everything had spiralled out of control? What if his brother was a fucking maniac and attacked Hayce?
Gods, he was being ridiculous.
One torn photo shouldn’t suddenly undo everything he believed… everything he already knew about Hayce.
Another noise came from the direction of the floor, and finally,finally, the door opened. The cell seemed to regain some of its warmth.
Hayce began to undress, tossing his clothes onto the armchair one by one. He pulled on a shirt and pants before slipping into bed beside Ehlian.
