Sevastyan shuddered. That was the Ellisandre he knew behind any mask. Honest to the edge of a blade. They had not so much found their way into him as cut their way in, bled him until there was room, and then set their throne up in the wreckage.
“Worse,” he whispered.
“Tell me.”
“No.”
Sevastyan waited for the need to flee to fill him. Ellisandre had so quickly found a slowly seeping wound. Perhaps there were too many wounds for them to avoid them all. The urgency to flee refused to arrive. He wanted to drift. If only thoughts would forsake him.
Beat me. Break me. Make me.
If Ellisandre took choice from him, then he wouldn’t have to own the decision. He could be shorn of the burden without opening his proverbial hands if only Ellisandre would slash him apart and take the words he couldn’t force himself to say.
Ellisandre’s hands stilled on his skin. They pushed Sevastyan down onto the rugs. He fell on his back, pinning his arms behind him. The posture arched his spine. Ellisandre grabbed his right ankle.
“I have time, Vast,” Ellisandre said, starting to wrap rope around his foot.
Will you let me go? The question filled his mind without being uttered. If he didn’t ask, then he didn’t have to fight or fear the answer. Neither yes nor no was the answer he desired.
All good choices and all good outcomes had disappeared years before, caught and released on one choked gasp of Rei’s lips.
Madness. That was what had brought him this far. There was no other road now.
The Merchari might call. They might demand to know where he was. Upper management would be wanting reports. Under agents would be wanting to make contact. If only his entire life would disappear like so much smoke and leave him in these moments. These moments and Rei . . .
“The black phone,” Sevastyan whispered. “If Ziqì calls . . .”
“I’ll bring you the phone,” Ellisandre said.
Sevastyan’s muscles relaxed a fraction. Ellisandre bound his right foot and ankle to the upper thigh of the same leg and started to do the same with his left side. Ellisandre’s hands passed confidently over places none but Rei had touched in years.
He should give them Rei. He should walk away and embrace the dark. Exist alone in the place he belonged, his soul more opaque than a moonless night.
The Merchari would never let Rei disappear. They would never let Sevastyan sunder himself from their web.
Ellisandre smoothed their palms over Sevastyan’s bound legs. They stood and crouched at his side, helping him kneel on pillows. The ropes pressed into his skin. Welcome pressure. Grounding. They bound him inside his body.
He could do nothing. Not run. Only speak, if he was willing . . .
He wasn’t. Words had never made anything less painful.
Ellisandre was moving around the room. Water ran in the bathroom. The shower. Cloth rustled, moved, settled. Sevastyan’s ears strained to hear beyond those soft sounds. There was nothing. Soundproofing went both ways.
Ellisandre moved toward him. Bare thighs brushed Sevastyan’s upper arms. Ellisandre’s hands settled on his shoulders. They folded themselves down over his knees, the backs of their thighs resting against the sides of his, their bare chest brushing past his face.
“Elli,” he gasped. They were bare. Naked. Even though he couldn’t see them, he shook. “You . . .”
Ellisandre’s hands cupped his face. “You went away, beautiful boy.”
He blinked back tears behind the blindfold. “Your clothes.”
“You know me better than anyone, Vast.”
“You don’t know me.”
Ellisandre kissed his cheek beneath his eye, still holding his face in both their hands. “You listened to me die, Vast. That’s more than any other.”
“Why?” Sevastyan gasped. “Did you never think I would rather have ended with you than lived the life I’ve lived?”
