Page 33

In daylight I have not forgiven him. It is four days since he sat by the fire and told me no, and I have not asked again. I am civil to him across the table, and it costs me.

My letter to Katell waited four days for Malo’s Monday, and went into Trevern with him this morning. I will not have an answer before Thursday. I am frightened of what it will say.

I have stopped thinking of the mask as a lie he tells me. We are both telling it, and I am the one who made the rules.

He knocks.

“It’s open,” I say.

He has to bend to come in. He shuts the door with the flat of his hand, and I hear the mask go down on the chest by the door.

He started doing that three nights ago. He takes it off in the dark, where I cannot see him, and comes to my bed with his own face.

I have not said a word about it. Every time I hear the wood touch the chest it goes through me, and I’m ashamed of how glad I am. If I say I heard it, I am saying I know whose face is under it. So I say nothing, and he crosses the room.

He gets his hands under my jaw and kisses me before I can start. He has learned what taking his time does to me. I get both hands into his coat because I do not intend to let him use that information all night.

He draws back a little.

“Say something,” he says.

“I’m occupied.” My thumbs are already working at a button.

“Anything. I do not care what it is. Just let me hear it.”

He has never asked me to break the silence in this room. He has my face in his hands and he is waiting, and I can feel how badly he wants it. It frightens me how much I want to give it to him.

And I break my own rule.

“Tell me one true thing,” I say.

His thumbs stop moving.

“That is a question.”

“It’s a demand. There’s a difference.”

For a long moment I think he will turn and go. There is nothing between him and the door but my fingers in his coat. I loosen them.

Then he says, “I asked someone to stay, once.”

“When?”

“That is a second question.”

“I’ll owe you.”

“Recently.” His voice has come right down, flat and close, no carry to it at all. “It was the first time I had ever asked anyone for anything that mattered like that. I did it badly. I have gone over the wording every night since and it does not improve.”

My hands are still inside his coat. I can feel my pulse in the ends of my fingers.

“What did she say?” I say.

“She said, ask me at sunrise.” He takes a breath. “And at sunrise she was gone, and she was right to go, and I have wanted to ask her again every hour since, and I would not be able to do it any better the second time.”

He is talking about me.

He is standing in my room telling me how much it hurt when I left him asleep on that table in Morlac.