I should’ve been thinking about that.
Instead, I was thinking about leaving.
It made sense. Horrible sense, but sense.
James wouldn’t stop because one hired thug failed. James never stopped. He would send someone else. Then someoneafter that. Lawyers. Auditors. Officials. Anyone he could pay or threaten, or charm into doing what he wanted.
He would keep coming.
And Kazan would keep standing in front of me.
That was the problem.
New Knossos was peaceful. Ceres-9 was supposed to be safe. There were people here who’d built lives out of nothing. Taverns and markets and homes, and orchards. Kazan had his cidery, his trees, his glowing fruit, his quiet routines.
And I had brought James to his door.
I couldn’t stay and let James destroy all of that. I couldn’t let him destroy Kazan.
So I had to leave.
Better to disappear before it got worse, and to be gone before Kazan decided I wasn’t worth the trouble. Better to make the choice before someone made it for me. I was used to calling running away something smarter.
The door opened, and Kazan stepped inside.
He didn’t look like he had when he left me there. He looked wilder. Bigger somehow. His shoulders filled the doorway, and the storm lit him from behind in flashes of purple and gold. His breathing was rough, and there was a sound in his chest so low I felt it before I really heard it.
His knuckles were scraped.
His tail snapped once against the doorframe.
His eyes still glowed gold.
Whatever he’d done outside, he hadn’t left all of it out there.
A week ago, I would’ve been terrified. A man that big, that angry, that close to violence should’ve sent me running. I knew what danger felt like. I knew the way the air changed before someone hurt me.
But my body didn’t tell me to run. That was the strangest part.
Kazan was dangerous. I wasn’t stupid enough to pretend otherwise. But none of that danger was pointed at me. He stood by the door like he didn’t trust himself to come closer until he’d locked the worst of it away.
For me.
“Maisie.” My name came out rough. “Are you hurt?”
“My hands.” I lifted them so he could see the thin red lines across my palms. “It’s nothing. I cleaned them.”
His jaw tightened, and the sound in his chest deepened.
I needed to say it before I lost my nerve. “I have to leave.”
Everything in him stopped.
I’d braced for anger. For argument. For the cold, reasonable voice James used when he was about to tell me I was being irrational. I’d braced for Kazan to tell me I was wrong.
He didn’t.
His tail went still. His shoulders dropped. The light in his eyes dimmed, and something in his face seemed to fold in on itself.
