“There are things I want from you,” he said. “One of them is ugly enough that I’m trying very hard not to put it in your hands.”
“I hate sentences that start like that.”
“Exactly why I won’t tell you what I want.”
“Kieran. You can’t say that and then refuse to explain.”
“That’s all I can give you without becoming a worse man than I would like to be.”
The wind pressed cold through my coat.
I should have stepped back.
Instead I said, “And what kind of man would you like to be?”
His eyes held mine.
Green, and too bright with pain to be careless.
“The kind who does not ask a girl to save him before she has decided whether she loves him.”
The roof went quiet around us.
I heard the flag rope knock once against the pole below. A bell somewhere inside the school. My own breath, suddenly too loud.
“Save you from what?”
Kieran looked at the apple in my hand.
“Not today,” he said again, but this time the words sounded less like refusal and more like pleading.
I did step back then.
Only one pace.
It felt like more.
Without the smile, Kieran looked younger. And worse, more frightened.
I suddenly wished I hadn’t asked about his Mark.
“Did he kiss you?”
The question came out of nowhere before he could polish it.
I stared at him.
“Caspian?”
“Unless Aldric has become much more interesting sincebreakfast. Although I suppose the question applies to Hale as well.”
“No.”
His relief was immediate and he failed completely at hiding it.
“He cleaned blood off my mouth,” I said. “That’s all.”
“I saw that part.”
