He shook his head. “You’re not listening. Ariah, I can’t, not with you, not like this. Look, I just…I know myself. This thing ’tween us, it’s all deep down in me. When you left, there were all these memories of you, and I couldn’t…I couldn’t sleep right. I had to get out. That’s why I’m here, right, that’s why I’ve stayed. Fresh start. And I’m nahsiyya, but I’m pretty red when it comes to this. But the thing is, even reds fall hard. It hurts reds, too, when it’s one-sided. You and me, what we are, that’s all right with me. I’ll take it, I want it. But if we fuck, it’s over for me. I’m trapped in it. I’ll never get out from under it.” He swallowed. A muscle in his jaw twitched. “I don’t know what this is, what you’re doing here right now, but if it’s not all I want it to be, it’ll hit me hard. So just…Ariah, just don’t. Not unless you’ve thought it through. Really thought it through. Just don’t.”

“I want you,” I said.

He looked at me. His face was the strangest mix of hardness and softness, of cynicism and hope. “Right now you do. But c’mon, how do you know what you really want? These are uncharted waters for you, right, you could bail halfway through, and I’d not fault you for it ’cause you only learn by doing, but you’d leave me all sprung. I love you, I do, and you know it, and what I’m saying is I can’t be the one you try on. What you need from me right now, I can’t give it to you.” He sighed. He ran his hands over his face. He looked over at me, stroked my cheek, and smiled, but the smile was a little sad. “I’m gonna take a walk, clear my head. I’ll see you later.”

Chapter 20

CHAPTER 20

Vathorem sat across from me in a small room in the palace. Somewhere down the hall, a pair of violins played a desperately sad song. Guards in the next room conversed loudly about the recent influx of satyrs into town. “It’s not working,” he said, half to himself. He peered at me, read me, and shook his head. “Maybe you aren’t built to build walls.”

“What?”

He shook his head again. “It’s not working. Can’t force it. We’ll have to try something else.”

“What else is there to try?” I said. My heart rushed to a sprint.

“Ariah, shh.”

My heart slowed down again. “Vathorem, shapers build walls. That’s what we do. That’s how we manage.”

“That’s how some of us manage,” he said. “But not you.”

“But in Moshel Atoosa’Avvah’s book…”