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“Very little of what you just said made sense to me.” He breathed out a laugh that fluttered over my lips. We’d stayed close, as if the physical proximity might bridge the gulf between us.
“That’s because here, none of that is true. The physical laws of the universe I’ve always known no longer apply. I’m adrift, with no framework to base decisions on.”
“Then trust me, doubting Gwynn. Give me that. Believe in that reality.”
“How did you know what Mistress Nancy said to me?”
He leaned back a little, grimaced and lifted the hand he’d fisted against the tree beside my head, flicked one of the earrings.
“I thought so. You ask me to trust you, but you reveal your own lack of trust by spying on me. Forever trying to control me.”
“Protecting you.”
“So says every abuser that ever lived.”
“The stakes are high. Far higher than you know.”
“Then tell me.”
“If only I could.”
“Can you tell me why you can’t?” This felt like playing Twenty Questions. I nearly asked “animal, vegetable or mineral?” Flip, but better than cruel. Asking him to play warmer or colder would be just asking for trouble.
Rogue considered the question, lowering our hands and rubbing mine with one thumb, thoughtfully. For the first time I considered that how he abided by these unknown rules was entirely up to him. I’d imagined some sort of geas that bound him from speaking, like the character who couldn’t tell what happened, but could nod yes or no, or write it out.
Instead, he navigated his way through a complex set of regulations, perhaps accruing points here and losing them elsewhere. Every move that skirted a certain line put him in danger of losing. Though I often felt we were opposed—after all, he’d clearly told me that he was not my friend—I could most likely rely on his loss being mine also.
It was also tremendously likely, given the evidence, that my ignorance of the rules was one of the factors he dealt with. At least he gave me glimpses into what I didn’t know, where Fafnir had played it another way with poor, blissful Cecily.
I hadn’t tried to keep these thoughts quiet and he watched my face, clearly listening. He didn’t nod or tell me that I was warmer. But, deep inside, on this level where those coils between us intertwined, I knew.
It wasn’t logical. I had no evidence to support it.
I had nothing else to go on.
“Fine.” I stopped short of saying I’d trust him, but the tension shuddered out of him and he smiled, with just a trace of his usual insouciance. I thought he might embrace me, but he restrained himself. Always the utmost care to observe the boundaries I set. I wondered if Cecily had even known she could do that. In a way, Rogue himself had led me toward that understanding. That and my astonishing introduction to my own magic.
“Did you know that I would be a sorceress when I arrived here? I mean, I know you don’t control the Dog, and he’s the one who brought me through the Veil. Who showed me how to connect my subconscious wish for a different life to the power he brought with him. But if he’s part of your subconscious, did you somehow direct him to find someone like me? Not a Nancy or a Cecily, but…”
“Gwynn.” Rogue released my hand and stroked my cheek with long fingers. “You should know by now that I stack the deck whenever I can.”
I laughed and laid my hand over his. “I do know that.”
He sobered. “Do you still want the earrings off?”
“Yes.”
To his credit, he did not flinch, but reached up and pulled them gently, one by one, from my earlobes. They released my flesh with a tingle of regret, a faint sigh of loss. I held out my hand, palm up, and he raised a sharp eyebrow, the thorns around it spiking.
“I’ll keep them.”
Bemused—how I loved to take him by surprise—he laid them in my hand, iridescent and lovely, glowing as blue as his midnight eyes.
“I’ll be angry if you lose them,” he warned, which told me this was a measure of trust from him. It might be taking me a while, but I was learning to understand his coded messages to me. I tucked them in my pocket, the bag holding the dragon’s blood bumping my fingertips. Good thing I’d shielded that puppy or Rogue would surely have sensed it.
“I’ll keep them close. And if I need you, I’ll put them on again.”
“Be sure to do that, my Gwynn. You are more vulnerable than you know.”
