Damn you, Jess, for making me hope it could be any different.

And thank you, too.

I still love you. As unwise as that is.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

“Mate,” Thomas said, and moved his knight into position. Jess groaned and tipped his king. It was his third straight game lost, but he at least felt somewhat steadier and a good deal more levelheaded.

“Let’s not use that term anymore,” Jess said. “Just say, I win.”

Thomas raised his eyebrows and smiled a little—the best that Jess had seen from his friend since finding him in that cell. “All right. You know, as much as I enjoy this strange new feeling of winning against you, you should go back and talk to Morgan.”

“Not yet,” Jess said. “She’d only throw another pillow at me. Or something more damaging.”

“I understand why she’s angry. What are you angry about?”

What was it, exactly? He didn’t know, except that he was angry at everything suddenly. Angry for Morgan, but angry at her, too. Stupidly. It didn’t even make sense. “She thinks I’m taking advantage.”

Thomas’s eyebrows rose to a ridiculous level, wrinkling his forehead like an old man’s. “Are you, Jess?”

“How can you even ask me?”

“Your motives are completely pure, then?”

Jess glared at him. “Set the board, Thomas.”

“You sound like Dario just now, you know.”

“Are you trying to insult me?”

“Only a little.” He outright grinned this time, and Jess smiled back. With months of grime washed down the drain and his hair drying to puffball brightness, Thomas looked almost like his old self. He had some spark back in his eyes. But the grin faded too quickly. “She’s trapped here. I know how that feels. Now you begin to see it, too, how being helpless twists us around.”

“It didn’t twist you,” Jess said. “You’ve done very well.”

Thomas’s expression didn’t alter. “It seems so, maybe. But I’m not the same. She’s not. Her confinement isn’t like mine, but don’t let the soft bars fool you. Taking someone’s will, someone’s freedom . . . it kills the heart and then the soul.”

“It didn’t kill yours.”

Thomas said nothing this time. He set up the board, white and black, and waited for Jess to make a move.

Jess didn’t have a chance, because a knock came at the door. He was hoping for Morgan, but when Thomas swung it open, Khalila stood on the other side. She glanced quickly at them both and said, “We have to attend dinner now. I don’t think they gave us a choice.”

“See?” Thomas said to Jess. “So it begins. The little deaths of freedom.”

They stepped out into the hall. Khalila stood quite alone, and Jess wasn’t sure if her arms were simply crossed or if she was hugging herself for comfort. He knew what she was thinking and feeling, because he’d felt it himself when Morgan had been taken away. At least he’d known where she was and who’d taken her.