He tried to bring that fantasy back to life. He imagined himself and Hest in a beautifully appointed room, regarding each other over a table laden with a perfectly prepared meal. In his dream, there had always been tall doors open to a fragrant garden illuminated by the setting sun. In his dream, an astounded Hest was always demanding to know how he had acquired all this for them, while Sedric leaned back in a chair, a glass of wine in his hand, and silently smiled.

He imagined it all in detail, the laden sideboard, the wine in his glass, the silk shirt, and the birds calling as they flitted from bush to tree in the evening garden. He could recall every bit of his dream, but he could not make it move, could no longer hear Hest’s intrigued and eager questions, could no longer make his own face smile as he would have smiled and shaken his head, refusing all answers. It had become unruly, a dream turned to nightmare in which he knew that Hest would have had too much to drink, and that he had refused the fish as overcooked and leeringly commented on the serving boy who came to clear the dishes. The real Hest would have asked him if he’d whored himself out on the streets to get this money. The real Hest would disdain whatever Sedric presented, would have criticized the wine, found the house too ostentatious to be tasteful, would have complained that the food was too rich.

The Hest of his dreams had been replaced by the man Hest had steadily become over the last two years, the mocking, sour Hest, the impossible-to-please Hest, the domineering Hest who had banished him here for daring to disagree with him. The Hest who had begun to bludgeon him, more and more often, with reminders that the money they spent was Hest’s, that Hest fed him, clothed him, and gave him a place to sleep at night. What had Sedric thought? That by becoming the source of the wealth and taking control of it, he could make Hest go back to the man he had thought he was?

Or had he wanted to become Hest, to be the man in charge?