“If you’re not supposed to have them—”

“That’s not important. If you come with me, I can protect you.” She’d think of something, anyway.

“Protect me,” he repeated. “You don’t want to return my muses. You want to stop me from finding them again. Your people will keep me in a cell. Deny me pen and ink until you can plug up the wellspring of my art.”

“You’ll be safe.”

He shook his head. “You offer me a cage, and say this cage will protect me from wolves I have never seen.”

“You don’t see these wolves. That’s my point. You’re walking down the street and all of a sudden you die. These people can destroy you.”

“Manuscripts don’t burn,” he said.

“Maybe not. But poets do.”

He looked at her as if she stood a great distance away, rather than a few feet. A ridiculous man, nothing about him noble or grand. Fool who traveled a foolish distance for foolish reasons, hungry for a foolish death. She wanted to help him climb from the hole he’d dug himself. She wished she didn’t feel as if she were the one in the hole, and he the one outside. “Will you force me to accept your help?”

“You mean am I going to wrestle you to the ground and drag you up the mountain if you say no?”

“Yes.”

She closed her eyes, and breathed, and reviewed the extent of her injuries, of her weakness. “No. I’ll get someone to do that for me.”

“Someone who will understand where you found the slip of paper you aren’t supposed to have?”

She crossed her arms.

It took a long time for him to speak his next words. “I will not go with you.”

“You don’t believe me.”

“I believe you,” he said. “As much as I’ve ever believed anything.”

“This is for your own good.”

“I came to Kavekana for my own good,” he said. “I thought I knew what I needed, and I had to go to the edge of death to learn that I knew nothing. If you’re right, if my need is the gateway into your idols’ world, perhaps I’ll meet my Lady again when your gremlins come to kill me.”

“Your Lady’s dead, Margot. She never lived, not the way you think. You invented a muse, and made believe it loved you.”

He pulled his hands from his pockets, and set them on his hips. Gallantry, Kai thought, always looked ridiculous. “Her love was not a lie. She spoke to me. And I will wait for her. Call your people, if you can. Imprison me. But I will not walk into your cage of my own will. Now.” He pointed to the door. “Please, leave.”

She slammed the door behind herself so hard the trees by the balcony shook. Her chest hurt.