Lila shook her head as she made her way back to the anvil. She set her bar down and let out a sharp laugh.
“Even as you are, you’re the same,” she commented, and Luc had no idea what she meant by that, but he knew she wasn’t taking him seriously. And thiswasserious. He would take her with him when he left. Her and no one else. If she wanted him to.
“I’m not joking. I’m going to leave this place. I’m going to leave all of it behind.”
Luc’s voice was fevered,impatient, hungry…the way it had been when he spoke of Earth. All conviction with little proof.
He never grasped the reality of the situation. Time had taught him nothing. And he hadn’t lived in his current cage long enough to know what it was like to be a creature that moved and breathed at the command of another.
So Lila inhaled his words, held them on her tongue, then exhaled, angry at his hope.
Luc was the brightest angel, but he was only an angel. She didn’t know what world he lived in, but in her world, in therealworld, humans tended the garden she’d shared with the lover in her dreams.
“Please stop,” Lila answered. Mentally, she recited her next steps: square off the heated end of the bar; taper it; form the curl; brush and straighten the pin; finish it with wax; wait for it to cool.
“Stop what?” Luc laid his hand on top of hers.
Lila snatched her hand away, leaving her tools on the anvil.
“Why did you come here, Lila?” Luc’s voice acquired a desperate edge. When she looked up, his eyes, also, were tinged with desperation. They unsettled her.
In his face…there was a darkness she’d never seen when they were students. Heavier than his exhaustion the last time they’d met. She didn’t know that she wanted to discover what it meant.
“I told you. I wanted to congratulate you. Let’s leave it at that.”
“I would, but I don’t believe you.”
“Well, what do you want me to say? Save me? Take me away from here? We’re not students anymore.” Lila glanced aside. “I can’t leave Castor. Not now.”
“Why not?”
“Why do you care?”
“I told you before. You’re the other half of my soul.”
“You don’t know what you’re saying.”
“Damn it, Lila!” Luc twisted away; he swept his arm over a side table full of loose metal parts, and they clattered to the ground. “How are you still so damn stubborn?!” He faced her. “And don’t tell me you enjoy living with Castor because everyone knows you two avoid each other like oil and water.”
At that, Lila choked out a bitter laugh.
“And you think because my experience with Castor has been so pleasant, I would jump at the chance to have the same experience with you?”
Luc’s face darkened.
“I. Am not. Like Castor.”
“Prove it then.” Lila lifted her chin. “You said you’d make me a world. I want a world all to myself. No humans. No Creator. No Council. And noyou.No one.”
Luc scoffed.
“Lila, why would…What would you even do there?”
“That’s my business, don’t you think? That’s what I want. Will you give it to me?” Lila’s voice wavered. She knew the answer, and she didn’t want to hear it.
Luc thought of himself, above all else. Castor could be malicious, but Luc was passively selfish, as a matter of course. He worried about his problems, his pain. Sure, he had moments of thoughtfulness and genuine concern, but they were few and far between, and Lila remembered them with too much sentimentalism.
Luc wouldn’t hurt her like Castor would—like Castorhad—but that didn’t mean he saw her as an equal. Already, she’d designed a whole damn world for him, and no one would remember her name.
