He shrugged. “I don’t know the mechanics. I just know how it works for me. I know it’s something to do with attention. Whoever it is you’re trying to hook, they’ve got to be focused on you. From there it’s just…intuition, I guess.”

“Well…you’re…you’re paying attention to me now,” I said.

“Oh, no, it’s more like I need to pay attention to you. Not the conversation, or what you’re saying, but you. You and me. I need to pay attention to you and me together. This moment where we’re sitting here, you and me. That’s the start of it.”

I tried. I did. I took his hands and leaned forward, peering into his face with a peculiar, willful intensity. “Dor? Shaliondor. I, uh…” I narrowed my eyes and leaned towards him a little more, searching for him, trying to fish him out. “Dor. Dor.”

He laughed. “Nothing.”

“Really?”

He pulled his hands from mine and patted me on the shoulder. “Nothing.”

* * *

The farthest the railroad went was Shalakesh; from there we traveled by horse. By the time we reached Shalakesh, I had been charmed at least a hundred times. I’d been mirrored dozens of times. I had failed at both countless times. But I tried, and that was the important thing. As long as I tried, really tried, did not hold back in the least, Vathorem gave me encouragement. He could tell when I slacked, and he could tell when I feigned effort, and he would have none of it.

I found it a little hard to be around Dor. It felt like he’d seen me naked. He’d charmed me over and over again, and I had only the vaguest memories of what I did and said when caught in his thrall. It felt uneven between us. None of it seemed to matter much to him. He seemed on the surface a simple man, but he wasn’t and likely never had been. He had a shell of simplicity wrapped tight around him, like armor. There were times I woke in the night, my mind turning, and I knew I’d caught a glimpse of something when I’d read him in a charm, but I rarely knew what. I had no grasp of him. My attempts to read him outright were generally unsuccessful. Vathorem had taught him to wall up from a very young age. I didn’t know until then that the skill could be taught to someone without the gift, but it had, and he was much better at it then than I have ever been. Dor was utterly unperturbed by me, or at least he seemed to be, but I was a bundle of nerves around him.