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“I’m sorry,” he says. “I…I don’t know why I did that. I don’t know you. I should go…”
I compose myself as well, smoothing the lapels of my coat. “I must insist you come with me. You’re going to freeze to dea—freeze in your cheap coat if we don’t get you someplace warmer. Not to mention, your wounds need tending.”
Cole touches a finger to his lip, as if feeling it for the first time. “No, it’s fine. Just more bad luck.”
I refrain from rolling my eyes. Humans are annoyingly stoic at all the wrong times.
“We have matters to discuss. Come.”
I give his sleeve a tug.
He resists. “I’m not going to fuck you.”
“Presumptuous, aren’t we? I told you, I have a business proposal.”
“I’m not going to fuck you for money.”
I smirk. “It baffles even me, but that’s not what I’m after.”
“Whatare you after?” Cole asks. His desperation and apathy are retreating, and his deep brown eyes are fixed on me and growing sharper by the moment. “Whoareyou?”
The intensity of his gaze is dangerous; something whispers in me that if I’m not careful,I might never want to leave it.
“Come with me,” I say. “Get cleaned up, get warm, and we’ll talk.”
I take two steps, stop, turn. Cole hasn’t moved.
I sigh. “I grow bored—and cold—standing on this bridge, Cole Matheson. Are you coming?”
He hesitates again, but a particularly nasty gust of wind makes the decision for him. He nods and follows me, not noticing that his dream phantom knows his name.
nine
Ambri led us through darkened London streets utterly unafraid. I followed more cautiously, jumping at shadows. The memory of my mugging flashed at me with every movement or sound.
But you’ll follow a total stranger to his place. Make it make sense.
More than once, I thought of slipping away, but something kept me putting one foot in front of the other. The need to not be alone with myself again, probably. Had I really been at the bridge? Was I going to…? I shivered in the chill air, awash in shame. As if I’d gorged on something terribly unhealthy, letting my thoughts take me to the edge like that.
A bad moment, that’s all. If Ambri hadn’t come…
It occurred to me that I didn’t actually know if his name was Ambri.
It also occurred to me that he knew my name.
Run. Now.
Instead, I followed him to a clean-swept Chelsea street, lightyears from my own place. Inside the posh building, a stately man behind the front desk nodded at us. “Mr. Meade-Finch.”
“Jerome,” my companion replied.
In the elevator, we stood side by side, our reflections brassy and blurred in the metal doors. “Meade-Finch?”
“It’s a family name. Old. Old and forgotten.”
“And your first name?”
“Ambrosius.”
