Despite herself, she felt warmth radiate inside her chest. “Are you going to cluck over me like a mother hen every time I’m not smiling and laughing?”

“Are you going to deflect my every attempt to get something real out of you?”

His insinuation made her anger spike. “You want something real? Fine. How about this? For the last decade I’ve pretended I was human, when in fact I know I should’ve been born…something else.”

Ludo raised an eyebrow. “You mean, like an animal? A puffy-tailed woodland squirrel or something?”

“Ha. Very funny. I’m being serious, but obviously it’s too difficult for you to do the same.”

“I’m sorry. Go on. What do you mean you don’t feel human?”

“I—don’t know exactly. It’s hard to explain. It’s like I don’t belong in this world. Like maybe there’s another world out there somewhere, or maybe a different version of this one, one where I belong, where things make sense. Where my role is clearly defined and there’s an obvious path laid beneath my feet. Instead, I feel like I’m always walking next to the path, and no matter how hard I try to veer toward it, it’s always another step away, unreachable. The truth is, trying to believe in something so distant is exhausting.” She watched him for any reaction, but all she received back was a slight frown and a dark stare. When he didn’t respond, she said, “I know it’s dumb, I shouldn’t have said anything…”

“No,” he said quickly. His hand found hers and this time, for some reason, she didn’t snatch hers away. His stare was persistent, serious, and she found she couldn’t look away—didn’t want to. “What you just said is the opposite of ‘dumb’. It actually makes more sense than I can put into words.”

She wanted to pull him toward her, to feel his arms wrapped around her, warm and tight, as she had when they’d slept beside each other during their journey. She didn’t. She couldn’t. Not when… She let the thought fall away. Then, as quickly as he’d grabbed her hand, she pulled hers away with a mocking laugh. “Then you’re even more screwed up than I am.”

His eyes searched hers, but then slid away, targeting some speck on the wall behind her perhaps. “Probably,” he said. “At least double as screwed up.”

“That’s a relief,” Bryony said. “It’s good to know there’s someone worse than me out there. Then again, at least you didn’t try to murder your own father.”

“True, but my father also isn’t the Fire Eater.”

A moment of silence ensued, more awkward than Bryony had the patience for.

Which led her to ask, “Who were the others at Comman Dur? The girl and the panther. The boy with the shadows. The winged demon. They had golden leaves on their faces, too. Just like my father once had.” She didn’t mention her mother had also had the same markings on her face before she’d died. He didn’t need to know.