“Your wounds are healing well.” Rhys is leaning on the armoire, his arms crossed over his chest, dark hair swept away from his face. He’s been silent since entering my room. It’s unnerving coming from him.

“If you have something to say, just say it.”

“Oh come on, don’t be like that,” he sighs. “Not to me.”

“If you aren’t going to say anything then leave me alone. I’m fine, Rhys. I don’t need your pity.”

“Pity?” He scoffs. “You think-” Rhys shakes his head, more to himself than to me. “Why, Alexis? Why do you prove on being so difficult all the time? I’m your best friend, for fuck’s sake.”

“I lost my best friend,” I say tersely. “And since finding that out everyone has either been pitying me or pissed at me for not being happy enough to be alive. So which one are you, Rhys? Here to tell me how selfish I am? Or how sorry you are? Or, better yet, tell me how pointless it all is since we’re all going to die in a few weeks time anyway.”

“You’re trying to push me away, Alexis. But you should know me well enough by now to know it won’t work. And you should know that I know you well enough to understand why. Game recognizes game, friend.”

I grab a fistful of sheets beneath the mattress I'm perched on.

“What nonsense are you talking about?”

“Oh come on. We both know you’re not the type to leave things undone. You’re patient, patient enough to see something through. So what is it? What’s your grand plan? Are you going to trade places? You going to leave without warning? Again?”

I open my mouth to protest, do anything to try to protest. But I don’t want to lie to him. Because if this goes wrong this could very well be our last conversation.

So I say nothing. But the truth needs no explanation. Not to him.

“Ok,” he nods. “Ok. Just tell me one thing, Alex. Tell me you’ve figured out a way to save him, really save him this time, without sacrificing yourself. Please. Lie to me if you have to. But I can’t-” Rhys, who never wears anything other than a smile, chokes on the face of grief. And I don’t know what to do. Because what if I’m wrong? What if there is no way to bring us both back? What if I’m gone for good this time? “I can’t let you leave knowing I could have done something to save you.”

And there it is, the truth I’ve run so far from. The very thing keeping me indebted to Aiden. Guilt and love and pain.

“You think it’s selfish, don’t you?” I whisper. “Leaving. Especially now.”

“No,” he says quickly, rubbing a hand under his nose to keep from sniffling. “You’re a lot of things, Alexis. Stubborn, merciless, sharp and tough. But selfish? Never.”

I disagree, but silently. Selfishness is my defining trait.

“I’m coming back,” I say instead. I mean it too, I believe it enough to not be lying to myself, whether it’s the truth or not. “We both are.”

“And if you don’t?”

The notepad is lying open on the bed, my handwriting scrawled all over the open page. I reach over and toss it.

“Then you take that to the others, to Eve and Joan and anyone else you think might believe you. And you tell them hope is not lost, not yet.”

“What do you mean?”

“Look through it, Rhys. I’ve written everything down, everything you need to seal off the mirror in Ita’s lair. You have to follow every instruction perfectly, down to the minute. It’s the only chance we have to prevent all this bloodshed without-" My voice catches, and I cannot bring myself to finish that sentence.

“You-” he shakes his head again. “You think this is going to work?”

“It has to.”

He agrees more speedily than I anticipate. Then again, he has only ever wanted to believe in me. I took advantage of that fact far too often in my life. And it may be too late to make it right.

“You’re a good friend, Rhys.”

“Don’t you dare get all mushy with me, Division Leader,” he scoffs, hiding a smile.

A shadow skirts by the crack in the door, a certain young nymph with black hair and soft features. Someone I’ve been waiting to see again.

“Wouldn’t dream of it.”

I’m on my feet and out the door before another word is uttered. She’s a quick walker and I have to practically jog to catch up to her, even if three of her paces are two of mine.

“Hey!” I shout, chasing after the shadow. I turn the next corridor and almost stumble into the girl. Her hair is braided loosely down her shoulders, exposing the pointed tips of her ears. Except one of them is severed at the base of the cartilage, an owner’s mark. I forget for a moment what it is I wanted to say, starkly reminded of her past.

She must feel my glare because her fingertips reach up and lightly graze the burned part of her ear. She moves to hide it, which only makes the hurt brewing in me worsen.

“Don’t,” I say quickly, falling into my native tongue. “Don’t hide yourself.”

Slowly her hand falls at her side. She has a housekeeping apron on and I speak before I can filter my words.

“Why do you stay a slave? Surely there are others who can clean.”

I realize the error of my words after they’ve already left my lips.

“I’m sorry,” I rush to say when I see the way her eyes widen. “That was insensitive of me to say. I don’t mean to say this is anything like what you’ve had to suffer through-.” Creation, I should just stop talking.

Much to my surprise, she laughs.

“I am not a slave here, Mr. Espinoza.  I enjoy the work. I feel… useful when I clean. It is what I know how to do.”

“You don’t have to contribute anything here to be worth something,” I say, even though I know exactly what that feels like. 

“And you don’t have to feel shame for the actions of others. I do not need your guilt or pity, sir,” she says, still smiling softly. My lips twitch into a frown.

“I have another insensitive question,” I preface, knowing I should remain silent. “The palace already has handmaidens and workers who are, no doubt, paid lavishly. Most of their crops are imported and farmers are also rewarded well enough to keep them coming back. So why would they use slaves?”

“And what of the housekeeper’s quarters? What about the jobs that no one wants to do? I was lucky enough to be a sanitation slave, but what about my siblings who were forced to get their hands dirty? The ones who worked in the mines, or the factories not even the poor could afford to work in. What about those forced to kill? Since Creator knows the assumption is we do so most efficiently.”

Even the jobs of my parents must have seemed like a luxury to them. There’s an apology on my tongue but it doesn’t leave my mouth. What good is it? Apologies cannot take the horror out of living such a life.

She motions with her head for me to follow when she keeps walking.

“Aren’t you angry?” I say instead, stupidly.

“Of course I am,” she chuckles. “I wish my former owners nothing but the most horrid, slow and painful deaths of them all. I’m not angry at you though, for simply being born an Atlan, Mr. Espinoza.”

“Irías,” I say. “I don’t use that last name anymore.”

A smile plays on the nymph’s lips, something slightly bashful and yet warm.

“A lovely name.” She dips into an open bedroom and I follow, watching how she tidies up quickly, and with structure. She starts at the bed, tucking the sheets in beneath the mattress. I join her at the other side, helping before she can wave me away.

“How do you know who I am?” I ask.

She does not miss a beat.

“You have the same eyes as your brother. Not the same color, but the same shape. And the same gentleness within them. Such nature is not easy to come by, not in this world.”

Of course. How else would she recognize me but through the likeness of my brother?

“I am not a gentle person,” I say, though it does not matter. This makes her smile again.

“No, of course not. Yet you speak to a slave the way one would address a noble, with the same dialect.”

“I admit my Aril is rusty.”

“Not that rusty, surely.”

She’s right, of course. Truth is, she is more noble than I ever was, and far more noble than those I’ve met within the palace.

“You knew Vincent?” I ask, instead of admitting to it.

“Yes, very well. You don’t forget your first friend. Or savior.”

“I don’t believe him courageous enough.” I slide a hand over the sheets, ironing out any remaining wrinkles.

“And yet it’s thanks to him I am a freed nymph.” She begins pulling back the curtains, letting in a flood of bright light. I find myself staring at her, framed in sunlight and expensive drapery.

“He used to talk often about how unkind you were, and yet affectionately so,” she adds.

“And what do you say to that?”

“Goodness is not always kind.” She says. “In fact, the two hardly intersect. But I do believe he was wrong about you. I believe you to be both good and kind.”

I hum in disapproval, still staring.

“From what I was told, sir, it seems like his kindness takes after your own. It’s obvious how greatly he admired you.”

“If he admired me so much, why would he leave?" I ask, before asserting the ability to stop myself. I clear my throat, like that could reclaim my composure. "As much as I appreciate your generosity, you’re wrong.”

“Why would anyone abandon anything? He was afraid. And, if I may be so bold, I believe he, much like yourself, has spent the majority of his life trying to rectify the decisions he made in childhood out of fear.”

Any sign of timidness in her face disappears when she approaches me, staring me right in the eyes.

“If a former slave can believe in second chances, can’t you?”

The girl excuses herself, whisks away into the hallway as quickly as she came.

***