Slowly and decidedly, Alastair set his book aside. There was a pulse beating at the base of his throat, just at the notch above his collarbone. It was a location Thomas had stared at before—he thought of the time in Paris when it had been just him and Alastair, wandering the streets, going to a moving picture, laughing together. He thought of Alastair’s fingers on his wrist, though that was dangerous territory.

“I knew you were taking extra patrols,” Alastair said. “And more than that—going out by yourself with a murderer on the loose. You were going to get yourself killed. You’re meant to take someone with you.”

“No, thank you. All these people going out in pairs, announcing themselves every time they speak, unable to make a move without consulting each other—they might as well ring a bell to let the killer know they’re coming. And meanwhile, if you’re not on the schedule, you’re supposed to just sit around on your arse doing nothing. We’ll never catch the murderer if we avoid being out on the streets. That’s where the murderer is.”

Alastair looked amused. “Never before have I heard such a concise statement of the ludicrous philosophy with which you and your school friends go through the world, running toward danger,” he said, stretching. Raising his arms lifted his shirt free of his trousers, leaving a strip of stomach briefly visible. Thomas determinedly did not stare. “But that’s not why you were doing what you were doing,” Alastair added. “There’s a little truth to what you just said, but not the heart of it.”

“What do you mean?”

“You couldn’t save your sister. So you want to save other people. You want revenge, even if this isn’t the same evil that took Barbara—it’s still evil, isn’t it?” Alastair’s dark eyes seemed to see into Thomas and through him. “You want to behave recklessly, and you don’t want your reckless behavior to compromise a patrol partner’s safety. So you went alone.”

Thomas’s heart gave a slow, solid thump. It was unnerving in a way he could not quite get his mind around that Alastair Carstairs seemed to understand his motivations when no one else had been able to guess at them.

“Well, I don’t believe you really think that we’re stupid,” Thomas said, “or that we willingly court danger for danger’s sake. If you believed that, you would do more to stop Cordelia spending time with us.”

Alastair scoffed.

“My point,” Thomas went on, an edge to his voice, “is that I don’t think you believe the rude things you say. And I don’t understand why you say them. It doesn’t make any sense. It’s as if you want to drive everyone away.” He paused. “Why were you so awful to us in school? We never did anything to you.”