He’s studying my face, though he looks more puzzled than hurt. “If you say so, but…”

“But what?”

He lets out a quick breath, and then squints at the dancers in the distance. “I’m starting to get a good idea of the parts of me that survived the fever. I don’t have my memories, and I don’t know much about the world, but I still have my instincts. It’s not just the fighting. I can also sense an enemy hiding around a corner. I know when it feels like rain. And I can tell when somebody…” He stops and looks at me. “I guess what I’m saying is that I don’t believe you. Not when you say that I’m just like a brother to you.”

He doesn’t say it as an accusation. In fact, he’s almost apologetic, but still I can feel my heart pounding against my rib cage. “I wouldn’t lie to you. Why would I?”

“I don’t know,” he says quietly. He catches my gaze, and he doesn’t let it go. “Why would you?”

My mouth goes dry, and my mind races with the answers I could give him. I could tell him he’s naive and delusional, that what he thinks are his instincts is just his own wishful thinking. I could tell him that he knows so little of the world, that there are many women out there and he shouldn’t stick with the first one he’s met. I could tell him that I have no wish to tie myself to a man.

“Because you deserve better,” I tell him.

He frowns. “I don’t understand.”

Once the words start coming, they rush out in a torrent. “Look at me, Dineas.” I wave my arm, gesturing hopelessly toward myself. “Look at the marks on my skin. You know what that means, don’t you? It means that in some number of years, months, or even weeks, the fever could return for me. Is that what you want? To love someone who might not be here tomorrow? To set yourself up for grief? Because the fever will come back. The fever always comes back.” I stop as abruptly as I started, struck with the realization that I’d just spoken truths long buried, fears I hadn’t even admitted to myself. Even if I haven’t told him the truth of his double identity or the complications of our mission, it doesn’t matter, because I’ve just bared my soul.

Dineas stares at me, eyes opening in comprehension. “That’s the reason, then? That’s why you won’t let me close?”

I could try to take it back, but he wouldn’t believe it. No one with eyes or ears would.