Page 94

“Will you eat them?” I asked.

“The chickens?”

“Yeah,” I said, observing them as they pecked at the ground.

“No. Only their eggs. We try not to eat animals unless it’s necessary.”

I was surprised by this. “Really?”

“Yeah. The Earths with magic tend to view animals as sacred. Magic flows through their veins as it does ours.”

I looked at the chickens. They seemed ordinary to me.

He followed my line of thinking. “They don’t have magical powers necessarily. They’re just part of the earth. Beings that should be respected. Like we respect one another as humans.”

I thought back to the Rogues, and Simon dead on the ground with a hole through his face. How Rogues had murdered Leo’s parents before that.

Adrian continued, “Growing up, my father told me how we treat animals reflects who we are at our core. He believed those who took their lives cruelly, or abused them, would face punishment in death. Doomed to be born repeatedly, each time as an animal whose life they took, only to be killed as they were.”

I wished that were the punishment in the afterlife on Six. The gluttony of mankind was obvious in the way we overindulged in food. So many lives taken daily. So much excess meat wasted. An animal’s life meant nothing on Six, unless you could train it as a companion. And even then, cruelty existed.

I’d hardly noticed the scarcity of meat on my plate these past few weeks. I’d been getting plenty of protein and nutrients from eggs and lentils, nuts and vegetables. And there’d been an abundance of fresh bread and baked goods, and sweet summer fruit. The only meat I’d eaten had been the fish Leo had caught while we were traveling. But it had been out of necessity. For survival.

“Do you love him?” Adrian whispered.

I paused my collecting.

I could feel Adrian standing behind me.

Too close.

“What?” I asked, needing time to work out an answer.

“You heard me. Do you love him?”

I turned to face him. “I’ve chosen to be with him.”

“That wasn’t my question.”

He stepped into me, so close that when I stepped back, I hit the nesting boxes. Caught between him and the wooden structure of the coop with no place to go.

“Move,” I said sternly.

“Answer my question and I will.”

“Or you can just fuck off.”

“It’s just a yes or a no.”

“Move!” I said again, this time louder.

He stepped away. “I’ll take that as a no.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“You didn’t say anything—that means no.”

“What do you want from me?” I shoved the basket of eggs at him, exasperated.