His glare weakens, eyelashes fluttering. “I searched what members of my family were there at the time, and who were in positions to have been part of that project. What if it was someone Iwasclosely related to? What if they were at one of the pretentious meetings Arasne has and I smiled and shook their hands and treated themcordially,while all along they were the ones who—” He pants, tongue pushing against his lower lip, and one of the tears he’s holding back slips down his cheek. “The ones whotouchedyou, and I didn’t know?”
“Did you contact them,” I ask, or try to; it’s flat, lifeless.
Thio hesitates. Hesitates enough that panic floods my veins, replaces all the liquid in my body, before he says, “No. I’m not closely related to them. I shouldn’t ever have to run into them. I wanted to be sure.” Another pause. This one holds a dagger to my chin. “But—”
“No.”
“No one ever held them accountable. No one ever stops myfamily, no one everdoes anything,and I am sick of doingnothing.” His voice cracks, words echoing between choleric sobs.
He wants me to let my father sue his family, doesn’t he? He hasn’t told me that. We haven’t talked about it since my parents came. But hewantsthat.
Thio’s crying, splitting apart, and me?
I’m standing, dry-eyed, numb.
“I told you I didn’t need that from you”—I can’t feel anything, not my lips moving—“and you found out their names anyway, thenused those names in an argument against me.”
Thio looks like I sucker punched him. “That’s not fair. I was trying to—”
“I don’t give a fuck what you were trying to do.” I laugh humorlessly, it throbs in my chest. “You don’t see the irony?”
His desperation peels back. Confusion.
“I asked you not to do something,” I say, “and you found a way to do it regardless. Just like your family would with this spell. They wouldn’t give ashithow we came up with the idea, that we got it on our own without their messed-up approaches. They’d take it, and they’d abuse it, becausethat’s what Touraels do.”
The wrong thing to say.
I know as soon as the words leave my mouth, and I see it hit him. The final tap on his already fracturing shell.
I see him break.
“I am not my family!” he screams, the words shearing his throat. “Gods,Sebastian, is that what you think of me?Still?When I fuck you, do you just think about Camp—”
He stops. Eyes wide.
I stop, too. His unsaid words beat against my skin.
And the words he said.Everyone I love.
“Sebastian,” he says, shuddering, adrenaline releasing. “I didn’t—”
I hold up my hand, palm flat.
Air jerks out of my lungs. I’d fold double if I wasn’t already walking for the door.
“Sebastian—wait.”
He touches me now. Grabs my arm, tries to get in front of me. He’s saying things, apologizing, but I shove him,hard.
Thio topples back into his desk with a rattling thud.
I’m not looking at him. The floor, I think. Something white and rippling.
Everyone I love.
“Stay away from me,” I tell him. Beg him.
And I leave.
