Page 134 of Flames and Blood

“Then give us the name.”

“Not in this room. Not before I’ve said it to her.”

Caleb makes a sound. Viktor lifts one hand, and he stops.

“She’s known this man her whole life,” I say. “If a room full of strangers has his name before she does, then it’s your case and your decision, and she gets told afterward what happened to somebody in her own family. She’s spent too much time having people decide things for her.” I look at Viktor, because he’s the one who’ll settle it. “She’s not getting that from me as well.”

Viktor looks at me for a moment.

“Tomorrow,” he says.

“Tomorrow.”

“And if she gives you a different name?”

“Then I was wrong, and I’ll admit it.”

“Good enough.” He stands again. “Go and check on her, and then sleep. We’ll get everyone in the loop as soon as we can gather them together.”

Serenity walks me up. She doesn’t say anything on the way, which I appreciate more than she knows. At the top of the passage, she stops and points at a door and goes back down.

It’s open a hand’s width.

She’s asleep in a chair that’s too big for her, sideways, with one arm hooked over the back of it and a blanket somebody put over her that she’s half kicked off. Her hair is loose. There’s a plate on the floor by her foot with most of the food still on it.

I stand in the passage and don’t go in.

For the first time in days, I feel completely still inside. I want another minute of it before I have to think about the next conversation I have with her.

Because I’m going to sit down in front of her and describe a man she probably cares about. And she is going to say the name I’ve been refusing to say to myself since I stood in Branna’s front room.

I pull the door shut, quietly, and go and find somewhere without a window.

I’ve done worse things to people than what I’m going to do to her tomorrow.

Just never to somebody I couldn’t stand to hurt.

Chapter 32

Kalli

I wake up in the chair with my neck locked and a blanket around my knees, and I know before I open my eyes.

Somebody has been in here.

Him.

I’m out of the chair and into the passage in my socks with my hair still down. The first person I see is Serenity, coming up the stairs with two mugs.

“He got in at two,” she says. “He stood in your doorway for a while, and then he went to bed. He made us promise not to wake you.”

“Where?”

“Third door.” She steps out of my way. “Give him a minute to be awake.”

I don’t knock.

He’s sitting on the end of the bed with his boots still on, fully dressed, and I can tell he hasn’t slept at all.