Or maybe that was me. My whole body shook as I pressed myself back into that rounded space, felt the cold of the wall all along my bare back.
My heart was shaking apart, losing bit by fragile bit, when the door opened quietly. I shrank.
“Roland?” Bet’s soft voice filled the air.
A slow hiss escaped between my teeth. I wasn’t angry at him, precisely. I didn’t intend to hurt him.
But I didn’t want him there. I didn’t want anyone to see me like this.
It was infuriating that he could find me so easily.
Unacceptable, that he might try and comfort me in this moment. That was what was coming—assurances and support—and I deserved none of it.
I shrank into the shadows against the frosty glass wall, and Bet’s keen eyes found me in the dark. His lips pressed into a thin, expressionless line, and he took a seat on a nearby bench, leaning over his knees so he was closer to my shrunken height as I squeezed my legs into my chest.
He sat there, staring at the wall above me for so long that I managed to catch my breath, to breathe deep and calm my spasming heart.
It took a while for me to come back to myself, but when I finally sucked in one full, steady inhale, Bet’s dark eyes found me.
“He thinks you’re dead,” he said.
Bet could only be talking about Aderyn.
My nose flared as I breathed in again. I smelled grass I’d flattened underfoot, and the blood on my chest from the claws I’d raked down my own skin, dragging at scales which did not belong.
I shut my eyes, and this time, I felt the pain of the scratches stretching as my skin returned to normal. That sharp sting was grounding in a way nothing else had been.
“He saw me,” I whispered, voice bleak as I opened my eyes.
Bet nodded. “You have to tell him.”
Against the very idea, my jaw clenched. “Did Tristram tell you he was a dragon right away?”
Bet’s lips puckered. “He didn’t have to.” He raised a brow at me, and that sharp black line cut me quicker than any blade he’d ever wielded could have. “He also didn’t leave me in the dark for a decade.”
I hissed, shooting a glare at the ground instead of at him. “It’s not the same.”
Bet hadn’t seen Aderyn in that cage. He didn’t know how Aderyn had suffered at the hands of creatures just like me.
To know that I was one—he’d never trust me again. I’d lose him.
And for as long as I could keep my secret, I wasn’t hurting him. He didn’t have to know that I could let him down so profoundly. It wasn’t that I wanted to lie; I simply didn’t want to burden him with the truth. What kind of monster would I be, to expect him to tolerate—to tolerate?—
Blinking fast at the sudden stinging in my eyes, I stared at Bet. He had to—he could fix this. Someone could fix this.
Not me though. I’d only ruin—I’d ruin everything.
In the time it took for me to take a shaky breath, Bet crossed the space between us and knelt close enough that his hips bumped my shins. He reached out, steadying my face in both hands as I began to cry.
“It’ll be all right. You’ll be all right,” he promised.
I didn’t believe him.
Shaking my head, I hiccupped, “He won’t trust me anymore.”
“He will. Roland, this does not change who you are. It never has.”
Bet didn’t understand.
