I sigh. He’s not good at this. Has he always been this myopic? “You could. But… you could also do it for me.”
His eyebrows go up. Then he smiles. “You want me to brush and style your hair? And put makeup on you?”
I mean, what better way to send the love of your life off to be the god’s sacrifice?But I don’t say that.Poised, proper, and polite, Clara. This is who you are.
Finn crosses the room, grabs a robe off a hanger, and helps me into it. Then he points to the hair and makeup chair. “Sit. I’ll give it my best try.”
I sit, and he putters around for a few moments, then lines up a selection of brushes on a tray. He combs my hair out, talking to me as he works.
“We have three kids.”
My eyes shoot up, finding his in the massive mirror propped up against the wall I’m facing. “What?”
“We have three kids. Aldo is still alive, so I’m not the Extraction Master. I told him I didn’t want the job. Would never take the job.”
A small, startled breath escapes from me. And despite all the horrible things I was just thinking about him, I smile. “What do you do then? Just sit around all day?”
The comb slides through my long, wet hair easily—sending a tingling sensation across my scalp, which turns into chills that make my whole body prickle up, and I shudder.
“I am…” He pauses to think, smiling at me in the mirror. “I’m a scholar.”
I laugh. “A scholar?”
“It is funny?”
“Surprising. I never suspected you were an academic. What do you study?”
“The ancient ruins of the desert. The tunnels below the city. I collect artifacts. And we don’t even live in a tower.”
My mouth drops open. “We’ve gone rustic? Don’t tell me we’re living down-city?”
“No. We liveunderthe city in the diggers’ camp. And our children run around barefoot and muddy. But they laugh a lot, Clara. And that’s the only thing that matters. We laugh a lot too. We don’t have any spark, except for the water pumps, and sometimes we crave the sunlight, but we’re happy. And there are cave rooms down there with holes in the ceiling where the sun shines through, where plants and trees grow, and the kids can run in the grass. And at night, when they’re all sleeping, sometimes we steal away to one of these open-topped caves and make love under the moonlight.”
My eyes are swelling up with tears. Because even though this was never my dream, nor his, I suspect, it’s such a nice life—such a satisfying future—that I am immediately sorry it will never happen. That we didn’t think of this sooner. That we didn’t know better than to play a game with a god.
Because there are no winners now.
We both lose.
Finn stares at me for a long moment in the mirror. Internalizing my sadness, I think. Because he starts to apologize. “Clara?—”
I interrupt him with a wave of my hand through the air. “Never mind. It’s a nice dream, but that’s all it is. A dream. Let’s stay focused on reality now.”
He nods and continues combing my hair until it is smooth and straight, mostly dry. “What do you want me to do with it now?”
I’ve never had to do my own hair for a gala or an Extraction, so I’m lost for a minute. But then I shrug. “Who cares? Put it up in a pony tail, I guess.”
“I think the Matrons would lose their shit if you walked out of this room with a pony tail, Clara.”
“Let them.”
“How about we just keep it down? Maybe… gather it up like this to keep it off your face?” He pulls up the long strands that hang down the sides of my face and pulls them back behind my head, fastening them there with a gold clip. “Good?”
I nod. Because I don’t care.
“And… how about no makeup?”
He’s never liked the makeup that I’ve been wearing since I was Chosen to be a Maiden. And this I do have an opinion about, because I never liked it either, so my voice is low and soft when I answer. “Yeah. No make-up sounds perfect.”
