“Fair enough,” Ryan said, and I reached over to hold David’s hand. He curled his fingers around mine again, but this time they felt cold and clammy, and all I could think of was him standing there on the grass, light and power pouring out of him.

•••

David’s house was dark as I let us in, and even though he seemed a lot better than he had in the car, I kept my arm around his waist as we walked up the stairs. His room was, as usual, kind of a wreck, and I kicked clothes out of the way, clearing a path to his bed. That was also cluttered, but with books, and when I swept them all to the floor, David winced at the thump.

“Be careful with those, Pres,” he said, and I was happy to hear him call me that. Happy that he finally sounded like the David I knew and not some kind of mystical bigwig.

Now that we were alone, I had to ask. “David, what did you see tonight?”

When he turned to look at me, there were still dark circles underneath his eyes, and the hollows under his cheekbones seemed deeper. There were little pinpricks of light at the center of each of his pupils, and I had to try very hard not to shudder at that.

He shook his head, rubbing a hand over his mouth. “It wasn’t anything,” he said at last. “A jumble of stuff.” He glanced up at me, brows lifted. “Alexander’s spell must have worked in some way.”

He was lying.

There was no doubt in my mind. I had known David Stark most of my life, and I knew that look, knew from the way his lips twitched that he wasn’t telling the truth.

I didn’t press him—tonight had been rough enough on him—but I decided I would do a little truth-telling of my own.

“I had a vision, too, you know,” I said, crossing my arms over my chest. “The night of my second trial. I saw you like that, the way you were tonight. I... I saw me with you.” I couldn’t add the part about what I’d done to him in that vision. I wanted to, but the words were too awful, and I couldn’t seem to say them. Instead, I said, “The me I saw in the vision, she looked at me. She told me to choose.”

David blew out a very long breath, his shoulders sagging a little. “You’ve had a lot to choose between,” he said, reaching out with one hand and idly pushing his desk chair in a slow circle. “Your regular life, or life as my Paladin. Me as a person or me as an Oracle.” He glanced up then, the tiniest smile lifting one corner of his lips. “And of course the most important choice of all—plaid or paisley?”