Page 141 of Flames and Blood

Gideon takes that. I watch him take it.

“That’s a decent man,” he says.

“Yes.”

“I’d rather he’d been a bad one.”

“So would I.” It comes out of me before I’ve decided to say it, and it’s true, and it’s an ugly thing to be true. “Then leaving him would have been easy.”

He turns away from me then. Not far. Two steps, to the windowless wall, where there’s nothing to look at.

“He can give you a life,” he says.

“Don’t.”

“I’m not being noble, and I’m not fishing. I want to say it once, out loud, so it isn’t waiting under every conversation we have.” He stays facing the wall. “Children. A family name that your clan already respects. A man who could stand up in front of them and be everything they want. He can do every one of those things. I can’t do any of them.”

“I’m not making a list.”

“No. You’ve never asked me for anything, and I can’t tell whether that’s because you don’t want it or because you already know what I haven’t got.”

The thing I want to say is right there, and it’s only three words.

Just three little words.

I don’t say them.

Not in this room, not tonight, not with my hands still twisting. He’d hear the state I’m in underneath it, and he’d spend the rest of his life not knowing whether I knew what I was saying. He deserves better than a shattered woman’s confession of love.

He turns around, and I can tell from his face that he knows I’m holding something back.

He doesn’t ask.

“Your turn,” I say. “You’ve been carrying something since you got here. I watched you not say it all through that meeting.”

“It’s not a good subject.”

“Say it. I can take it.”

He’s quiet for a second.

“You already know what Branna told me,” he says. “I’m not making you hear it again. But I’ve had two nights of driving with it and nothing else to do but think.”

“Gideon.”

“I’ve done this work for more than a lifetime.” His voice has gone lower. It doesn’t rise when he’s angry. It drops, and every word comes out level. “I’ve walked into rooms most people couldn’t stand to look at. I did the dirty jobs and slept fine afterward. None of it ever stayed with me. This has.”

“You’re allowed to be angry.”

“It isn’t anger.” He looks straight at me and doesn’t soften any of it. “There is a man alive right now who wants to kill you and make it look like an accident. And if he’d acted on it while you were out there alone, I would have been three days away, and I wouldn’t have saved you. I can’t stand that, Kalli. I haven’t been able to stand it for one hour.”

His hands are open at his sides, and he isn’t moving at all. That’s what he does instead of shaking.

I go to him.

“Look at me,” I say.

He does.