Halverton turned his gaze on her at last. “What can I do for you?”
Aoife swallowed. “Some information came to me recently,” she said, “that helped me understand you a little better.”
His mouth twitched into the faintest hint of a smile. “Oh yes? And what is that?”
She hesitated. “I heard how you came by your scars.”
He said nothing.
The silence that followed was thick, tightening the air in the room until it was difficult to breathe. Halverton’s expression did not change.
Aoife forced herself to go on. “What happened at Dún Maebh… I didn’t know. About the fire. About the roof collapsing. About your family.”
Her voice softened. “I didn’t know how alone you were.”
Still, he didn’t speak. His golden eyes, catching the lamplight, rested on her with a peculiar flatness. A man measuring a threat.
“I only meant,” she continued, quieter now, “that it helped me understand you a little better,” she faltered.
“You believe this explains me?” he asked at last.
It wasn’t anger in his voice.
It was soft, the dangerous kind that came before a blade was drawn.
Aoife straightened. “I think so. A little.”
Halverton leaned back in his chair, hands steepled. “What a generosity of interpretation.”
His tone was pleasant. Perfectly pleasant.
It chilled her.
“You think a tragedy forged my character,” he went on. “That pain made me unyielding. That rejection created ambition. That a wound,” he lifted two fingers to the right side of his face, “established a need for control.”
Aoife swallowed. “Isn’t that true of most people?”
“Most people,” he said, “are forgettable.”
He smiled. It was small, controlled, and utterly humourless.
“People love a wounded man, I suppose.”
“That’s not—”
“Or perhaps,” he cut in, “now you pity me.”
Her mouth went dry. “I didn’t say that.”
“You implied it.”
A beat.
“You should not.”
He stood then, slow and deliberate, circling the desk. He stopped beside her chair, hands clasped behind his back, posture perfect.
“When a man is rejected by his family,” he said faintly, “he learns he can rely on no one.”
