Kane stumbled through what he’d prepared. “You know me, don’t you? I mean we know each other. You were one of the Others once, weren’t you? You have powers. You can see things other people can’t, and you look out for me. But only me.”

Finally something stirred in Dean’s eyes: resentment. When Dean brushed by, Kane caught his wrist.

“I have questions for you!”

Dean spun, grabbing Kane’s hand tight. “Don’t you know how dangerous this is?” he hissed. “Didn’t I make myself clear?”

Kane shivered. Nerves. The edges of the crumpled page poked into one palm, and Dean’s nails poked into the other.

“I just want to know who you are.”

“Forget about me,” Dean said.

“Evidently I already did,” Kane shot back.

Something shifted in those sea-foam depths. He had hit a nerve. Exposed something. Now Dean watched him with guarded eyes, as though the very sight of Kane hurt him.

Kane knew what he wanted to ask, but he also knew he would never believe a single word that came out of Dean’s mouth. Everyone lied. If he had learned anything, it was that words from mouths could be beautiful and deceptive, but mouths could tell you their truths in other ways. Kane wasn’t going to leave without that one truth. And so, beneath a paper moon and among the false forest of the stage, he kissed him.

And, taken by surprise, Dean forgot the strict rules that held him together, and kissed back.

There was applause from the ghostly audience, Kane imagined. When Dean tried to speak, Kane breathed the words back into his mouth, refusing their deceit, until Dean’s hands climbed over Kane in sure familiarity. Kane, hungry to know, took everything he could from the kiss—Dean’s truth and his pain—and when it ended, it was against Dean’s will. And that’s how Kane knew.

Kane stepped back, leaving Dean’s hand to clutch empty air.

“You love me,” Kane said. He couldn’t look Dean in the face, so he looked at his hands. Brown skin, smooth palms, perfect nails. The hands of a prince.

Dean didn’t deny it.

“What did you do?” Kane asked. “You were one of us once, weren’t you? Why don’t the Others remember? Did Adeline do this?”

“Not Adeline.”

“Elliot?”

Dean clasped his hands in front of him, then unclasped them, leaving them to twitch restlessly at his sides. “You.”

“I don’t understand.”

“You took everything from us.”

Kane’s throat felt straw thin, one molecule of air sliding into him at a time.

“Is this about my accident? About Maxine Osman’s death?”

“Accident.” Dean grimaced. “What happened to Maxine was the accident. What happened to you was on purpose. It was…” Dean searched for a word, his mouth working through his anger. “It was what you wanted.”

“Do you mean finding the loom?”