Page 57

That's the part that scares me. I'm still furious with him. But, I still trust him with my whole shaking body. Both at once, and neither one will quit.

The shaking finally slows.

"How did you know?" I whisper.

He goes still against me.

"I felt…"

"You felt what?"

He pulls back enough to look at my face. Whatever was in his eyes shutters closed.

"I heard Sid," he says. "He was screaming."

"That's not what you started to say."

His jaw does the thing. The tell.

I grab his shirt again. "Don't. Don't swallow the truth and deflect with something else."

"Maren."

"I watched a woman burn alive. She knew my name."

His whole focus sharpens on me.

"What woman?"

I point at the crumpled necklace. "Her. The one in the photo."

He lets me go, carefully, and crosses to it. Uses a corner of a dress to lift it off the floor.

The pendant is empty.

"No." I get up too fast and the room swims. "She was right there. Dark hair, serious eyes, I was holding it, she was in the glass."

Only black glass now. Blank as a closed eye.

I grab his wrist. "I saw her, Gage."

"I believe you."

"That's even worse."

"Yeah," he says. "It is."

A laugh scrapes out of me, thin and wrong. He sets the necklace on the counter well away from both of us and turns back, and his eyes drop to my throat.

Whatever he sees there darkens his whole face.

"Does it hurt?"

"A little."

He lifts his thumb toward the mark. Stops a breath away from my skin.

"Can I?"