Page 99 of The Witch They Fear

"Don't okay me like you don't believe me."

"I'm okaying you like I heard you. I don't have to believe you. You don't have to believe me either."

He looks at me. He looks at me long enough that I can see his pupil widen against the dark.

"Why are you here, Hex?"

"Because my magic dragged my head around the moment you stepped under that tree."

"That's not what I asked."

"I know."

We watch each other.

"Can I ask you something," I say.

"You can try."

"Who are you?"

His face changes.

It changes fast. The almost-laugh evaporates and his face goes still. Not anger. Something colder. He has heard a sound he doesn't like. His jaw works. His hand comes out of his pocket and he runs it through his hair and the gesture is rough.

"That's the kind of question," he says, quiet, "you don't ask people in this place."

"I'm asking it of you."

"You don't—"

"Kage." I lift my left hand. Open palm. Slow. "I'm not asking for a council file. I'm not asking to put it on a form. I am standing in the dark with the man who killed somebody for me three days ago and I don't know who you are. And I would like to."

The quiet between us stretches.

"Please," I say.

I'm not above please anymore. Twelve years of please in a facility burned that out of me a long time ago, and Devenir hasn't yet given me back the dignity to refuse it.

He looks at me a long time.

“Jesus Christ, I’m not the fucking IRS.”

"I was somebody else, once," he says.

I wait.

"Not somebody better, Hex. Don't get romantic about it. Just somebody whose life belonged to him." His jaw works. "I had a name then. I'm not going to give it to you tonight. I haven't said it out loud in—I don't remember. Long enough that if I tried it would come out wrong." He rolls his shoulder. "I'm not a student. You obviously knew that."

"I knew."

"I'm not faculty."

"I knew that too."

"I'm—" His jaw flexes. The word doesn't come. He looks past me, past my shoulder, into the trees. Tries again. "I'm here because the people who decide where I am decided. I do work nobody else wants to do. I take orders from a man who doesn't need to ask twice."

His mouth twists.