“And my presence doesn’t make you miserable?” she asked slowly. Her head tilted slightly to the side.
“I’ve never met anyone like you before.”
“I can’t tell if that’s a good thing.”
“I haven’t stopped thinking about you since I met you, and I find it terrifying... and exciting.”
“You don’t hate me then?”
“It would be easier if I did.” Jesstin’s hands slid along the rough wooden arm. “I’m mad at myself for what happened in Mythgarde. I should never have invited you. It was selfish. Considine and his snide... The weasel got under my skin. I let him.”
“He does that. He’s only here with us because he wouldn’t help otherwise.”
“We’ll ditch him when we get there. In an actual ditch.”
“You’re serious, aren’t you?” Elloven’s cheeks pulled in amusement. “Can’t lie in the Night Soul.”
Jesstin wanted to say more. Each tiny confession was a link in his chain to freedom, even if it wasn’t really real. “Truth can be dangerous.”
“Or liberating.” Elloven frowned and amended her statement. “No, actually, that hasn’t been my experience. Taven says I’m ‘complicated,’ but I just try to see the world both how a realist and an optimist would. I’m sure you think those views are incompatible too.”
“You’ve been through the worst, so you’re never surprised when assholes act like assholes, but you want to believe there’s still good in the world?”
“There is good in the world,” Elloven replied, insistent yet suddenly quite solemn. “Why endure anything if not for the promise of something better?”
Jesstin understood. Unlike Elloven, he was out of idealism though. Seeing the world for what it was, that was a different kind of liberation. A truth no one wanted to believe because it altered their perspective forever.
Once Jesstin had accepted he wasn’t meant for a traditional life, he could outrun the shadows of his disappointments and turn them into something useful.
“What are you thinking right now?” Elloven asked.
“I’m thinking how right you are,” he answered. “There is good, if you adjust your expectations.”
“Are you speaking generally or from your experience as the proud owner of a speculation hall and brothel?”
Jesstin smirked. “Both.”
“I’m surprised they were so quick to hang a rope for one of their own.”
“But I’m not one of them. You are.”
Her kohled eyes knit. “I want to know why you’re so angry about the bond. The real reason.”
Jesstin wet his lips. “Because of what it will mean for you if we can’t find the magic to break it.”
“We will,” she said.
“We might,” he conceded. “But one thing I do know, Elloven, is you and I will never fulfill the terms.”
She sat with that for a moment, drawing her legs up so her lacy arms could circle them. “Because you don’t want to?”
“Oh, I want to,” he said, the truth tumbling out. “But I won’t.”
Elloven nodded to herself, her eyes cast downward.
“Do you?”
“Yes,” she said slowly. “But I won’t.”
