Page 172 of The Fifth Heir

“Then you are Talia.”

I remembered the study on the night he discovered my scale.

He had said the same thing after calling me an unidentified manifestation. A correction added too late because he saw that the first words hurt.

“You tried that before,” I said.

“I didn’t understand it before.”

“What changed?”

“You summoned me tonight and I was glad.”

The admission was quiet.

He looked at our joined hands as though they presented another puzzle, but his expression held no fascination now. Only uncertainty.

“I wanted you to call me,” he said. “Not because your scale was visible or because you had new information. I wanted you to choose me when you needed someone.”

“I did.”

I had chosen him because he understood silence, because he could sit beside pain without trying to rename it, and because when the academy turned my body into evidence, he had finally learned to put me before the discovery.

“Yes.”

His fingers tightened around mine.

I moved closer.

“Does anyone call you Bastian?”

His eyebrows drew together. “No.”

“Do you dislike it?”

“I haven’t considered it.”

“That seems unlikely.”

“I’ve considered the historical and linguistic use of the name. I haven’t considered it applied to me.”

“Of course you haven’t.”

“Why Bastian?”

“Sebastian is the man who files reports and examines sealed cabinets.”

“That is most of me.”

“Not all.”

The observatory remained dark enough that I could not read every change in his face. I felt the change in his hand.

“Bastian,” I said.

His Shadow moved across the floor.

It reached me without covering the starlight.