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At first, Raider couldn’t respond. There was too much to absorb, too much sudden context packed into that brief gloss. No wonder Seth was so devoted to the Arcanum. No wonder he had become a Curator, like the man who had saved him.
But context wasn’t the point of this story. This story was about loss. Devastation. There was no way Raider could respond with, I’m sorry. Or, How terrible. There were no words for this at all.
So Raider unhooked one of his arms from around his drawn-up knee. He reached out and laid his hand over the fist that was balled up on Seth’s thigh. It took a moment for Seth’s hand to relax, to open. When it finally did, Raider threaded their fingers together.
Seth’s brilliant green eyes met Raider’s. The intensity was still there, the depth of feeling, but now Raider glimpsed in that depth the pain he hadn’t seen before. Seth was letting him see it. He was choosing to share Raider’s vulnerability—and Raider didn’t think anything had ever meant so much to him.
With his eyes, Raider tried to say, Thank you.
With his touch, he tried to say, I understand what you’ve told me.
“Asha was my Marcus,” Raider said, his thumb brushing Seth’s. “After … this.” The quicksilver, he meant. Everything.
Seth nodded, understanding
“The Sudai found me in the Kesh. They mistook me for a raider. That’s how I got my name. As a misunderstanding. Then a joke. Then for lack of anything better. Like Jasmine, you know? In the perfume shop?”
Seth closed his eyes, wincing. “Fuck. That’s … not what I had assumed.”
Yeah. Raider had figured. He couldn’t blame Seth for his assumption. Raider had kept the name on purpose. It had a dozen meanings that felt right to him, but first and foremost it meant, Don’t trust me.
Seth’s thumb stroked the back of Raider’s hand. “You said you lived with the Sudai for a year?”
“Yes.”
When Raider didn’t go on, Seth prompted, “You said you left because you’re not one of them.”
There was a tone of question to Seth’s words, and Raider understood that he was really asking, Was that the real reason?
Yes and no.
Raider pulled his hand free of Seth’s and went back to having both arms hooked around his drawn-up knee. He looked out at the desert. “I got restless. A feather on the wind, remember?”
Seth made a small but unmistakable sound of frustration. Yes, Raider was closing up. This truth, he didn’t want to tell Seth.
The Sudai had seen him at his worst. Angry and confused. Raider had needed to escape that. He had needed to be around people who had never seen him like that—so he could leave it in the past and let it not exist. Every time Raider encountered the Sudai, some of that came back into existence. He loved them. He loved to see them and talk to them. But every time he said goodbye to them, mixed in with his sadness at the parting was a sneaking hint of relief, like the past could vanish again.
A second deletion of his life.
Maybe it was because Raider had closed a door in the conversation, but Seth circled back to the weak point in Raider’s story.
“You really have no memory—”
“I told you that. Why don’t you believe me?”
Seth grunted in frustration. Raider looked at him from the corner of his eye. Seth’s jaw was bunched, his eyebrows down.
“It’s just hard to wrap my head around,” Seth said. “Not remembering anything.”
“You said you couldn’t remember some things.”
It was a low blow and it made Raider feel like an asshole, but he had to shove this conversation in a different direction.
“I know,” Seth acknowledged. “That’s why I kind of understand. But …”
“But what, Seth?”
Seth’s mouth worked for a second, like he wasn’t sure whether to give voice to his thoughts. Raider turned his head fully toward Seth, glaring at him, trying to get him to say, Nothing. Never mind.
