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Blood roars in my ears. It’s just like Cormac to bring up my place—it’s my weakness. The one thing that I can’t pretend to tolerate. “This wasn’t our deal,” I remind him. “I came to help you, not sit around.”
“But you’re so good at it,” he says.
As if he knows what it’s like to pretend, to play at life every second of the day.
Without thinking about it, I lift my full tureen and fling it across the room. The porcelain shatters against the wall, spraying stringy onion against the smooth, golden paint.
My hands splay against the wooden table and for a moment I consider using them. I could unwind him, wipe him from existence like he casually erases those who threaten him, but I won’t make it out of here alive if I do. Cormac has collateral to ensure my good behavior, so I scratch my fingers across the wood’s grain to stem the trembling in them.
Cormac presses the com near his end of the table, ignoring me. “Next course, and send a maid to the dining room.”
“But then she’ll know about our domestic problems,” I say.
“I’ll have her removed when she’s finished cleaning up your mess,” he says, and I fall back against my chair.
This is why I’m kept alone, because I’m always screwing things up for innocent people like Jost and Enora. The maid enters the room and gawks for a split second at the wall, but she replaces her surprise with practiced indifference and goes about cleaning up the soup.
“It slipped,” I call to her. “I’m terribly clumsy.” I keep my eyes on Cormac as I speak and he nods once like an approving master. I am but his humble servant once more, like everyone else in Arras.
Once the maid leaves I wait for him to make the call to have her altered or removed, but he doesn’t place it. I’ve performed to his satisfaction.
The main course is a selection of vegetables—carrots, potatoes, a squash of some sort—in a heavy tomato sauce. The first bite reveals complex tones of red wine and I savor it, before pointing out the obvious.
“There’s no meat.”
“I’m trying to eat less of it. Doctor’s orders,” he explains.
“You’re immortal.”
“I am not immortal.”
“You’ve used other people’s time threads to stay alive for hundreds of years,” I argue.
“That’s not immortality.”
“What is it then?” I ask.
“That’s privilege.”
It must be nice to be a man.
“And privilege allows me to choose such spirited company,” he continues.
I smile at him. “I can throw this plate against the wall if you like.”
“There’s been enough collateral damage for one evening, I think.”
I shrug and pretend to pick up the plate but he doesn’t crack a smile of his own. The Cormac who could appreciate my spirited company seems to be fading with each dramatic new development in Arras. At least the old Cormac was fun to fight with. Now his behavior is unpredictable.
“Despite your behavior this evening, I have a present for you.”
“It’s not my birthday,” I tell him. Still no smile.
“You missed two while you were away,” he reminds me. “I’m catching up.” Now he is smiling, acting sweet, his attitude totally reversing in seconds. I can’t wrap my head around it.
“Does that count?”
“I’m having it brought with the dessert course,” he says.
