But he had been involved in plans that caused the deaths of any number of blueskins. What was the difference here, except in scale?

A huge difference, of course.

Enough of a difference—?

“I see,” she said to Nolan in goldtongue. “You see. He sees. We see.”

She saw, but she tried not to see. She had been shocked, upon first returning to the city, to learn that Jex had set a bomb in the medical building. “No one was hurt,” he had said impatiently, when she tried to question him, but she could not see that that made a great deal of difference. Someone could have been hurt. Even if he had scouted his location thoroughly (which she knew he had not; Jex could be unbelievably careless)—even if he knew that on most days the building emptied out by nightfall, this one evening could have been different. This one night, someone could have worked late, stayed in his office to write a letter, had a fight with his wife so he did not bother to go home … and that one person could have died in the colorful blast that brought down the whole pile of stone and mortar. It was luck that no one was killed in that first explosion, not intent; and if you could not trust a man’s intent, what could you trust?

“I know. You know. He knows. We know.”

Jex was not a good man. She had not judged him by such criteria before; it hadn’t occurred to her. He was brilliant, gifted, charismatic, a man of light and motion. He had allowed her inside his vortex, and she was shocked into new life. She had not questioned his goals and desires. She had even believed in them. But she had not realized he would kill to achieve his ambitions, and once she had realized it, she had continued to love him. What did that say about her? What did she know about her own heart that she was afraid to examine?

“I want. He wants. You want. We want.”

He was Jex. She loved him. She desired him with a physical addiction that went beyond thinking, beyond volition. She could not change him. Was she allowed to judge him? If she judged him, and he failed her criteria, must she leave him?

Of course she could judge him. Of course he had failed. Of course she must leave him.

“I think. I thought. I have been thinking.”