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“Why not?” He hands me a glass.

“You seem…tired.”

“I work a lot,” he says with a small shrug. “Now eat. I know you haven’t all day.”

“I was restless.”

“I would be too.”

“See?” I lift a brow. “Exactly. I can’t just sit around here and read all day. A woman needs her freedom.” I say it to him yet don’t believe the words. What is freedom without memories? Freedom from the woes of the past?

People would kill for such liberation. Men have murdered their wives and children in pursuit of a clean slate. The lack of a past need not hinder my future. Though, the thought echoes hollowly as though spoken down a long, empty corridor.

The one thing I never asked about this place was: what happens with the mountain pass? Will anyone be able to leave? Though I don’t want him to garner the apprehension of me stealing his motorcycle, stow it away, and leave me without a mode of escape.

After a moment of silence, Kieran responds, “a woman does need to be free.”

Gently he places dishes before us. Salads layered with herbs, warm bread fragrant with rosemary, and an herbed rice dish steaming in the candlelight.

The meal stirs a flock of memories from some lost childhood—sunlight in my hair, fingers sticky with sugar, my mother’s red lipstick pressed playfully to my cheeks. “This reminds me of my mom.” The words unravel with a frown.

“Do you remember much about her?” Kieran asks, shifting awkwardly in the delicate chair, his broad frame far too large for its fragile design.

“I remember what she looked like, what my father looked like, but not much after that.”

Kieran tilts his head and crosses his arms against his chest.

“I know I was born Marisa, March 31st, 1985. My father was a medical doctor. My mother was not the best mother the world had ever seen but she tried. My father...he feels like an empty vessel. Besides family, I loved rock bands, weird books, and writing. But everything is hidden behind a haze. There are no names, only blurry faces.” The recitation pours out of me in one breath.

“Dissociative fugue works that way,” he says quietly. “A trauma so dark the mind barricades itself from reliving it. A survival mechanism. I hope it doesn’t take long for your memories to return.”

I hum, sipping my wine. It tastes decadent; dark chocolate beneath a mysterious fruitiness, a richness that pools warmth in my chest.

“It’s probably why the physical toll is so excruciating,” he continues. “Your mind is restraining you from crossing back into those locked rooms.”

“Do you think I’ll ever get better?”

“I will make sure you do. And…that you get out of here.” The promise curls around me like smoke, dissipating before I can feel it. I want to ask him about the things in the forest, about the creature in the East Wing but doing so would reveal my other wanderings. I had already ingrained myself into another man’s indulgences—even if they aren’t mine—and the idea of disappointing Kieran is a new feeling I find I’m contending with.

We eat in comfortable silence for a while. I watch him with a quiet curiosity. The way he places his wineglass just so, how he dabs his napkin precisely against his slacks, how he refuses to let any of his meal components touch. He’s a controlled specimen in front of me. A man carved from solemnity. Doctor Kieran Lazarus, I suspect, possesses only three emotional registers: somber, faintly amused, and fury. And perhaps the fury is simply concentration in disguise.

I hate how much I am drawn to him.

Are you drawn to him? Or are you trying to figure him out?

“So, I want you to come somewhere with me,” he says, lips compressing into a grim line.

“Go ahead,” I prompt, pretending I don’t already feel my pulse quicken. He sighs, leaning back in the fragile chair. I swear it might collapse beneath him. “I’m having dinner with a few colleagues soon. A… meeting of the minds.” His eyes flicker upward. “I was wondering if you’d want to come with me?”

I arch an eyebrow. “You want me to come with you?”

“Yes, Marisa,” he says softly. “I want you with me.”

“Surely there’s an armful of women to choose from.” Not to mention, your very dead wife.

He laughs, low and unexpected. “I’m merely a man lost in the torrents of his own making.”

“Alright,” I concede. I mean could I say no? I doubt it.