“As in, angry,” she explained her strange vernacular, something she’d needed to do quite often during the few short days of our voyage.

“Right,” I bit off, not surprised about that in the slightest.

“And you will, as the years pass, need to decide what is important and what is not. What he is simply being bull-headed about, and what actually means something to him. And you will come to understand something that is very difficult to come to terms with,” she said.

“What’s that?” I asked, curious even if I did not wish to be.

“That you will on a regular, but hopefully not frequent, occasion do things that will make him super freaking pissed…at you,” she educated. “And he’ll have a right.”

“That’s the worst,” Circe mumbled.

I’d already, in a way, discovered this.

I said nothing.

“I don’t know Cassius very well,” Finnie went on. “But I’ve noticed the closer we get to his homeland, the more tense he becomes.” She shrugged. “This might be that his capital city is under siege. It might be that dissidence is brewing across his land. It might be all that happened in Wodell. The way things are going in this place, it could be a hundred different things. But I get the sense he’s tense…for you.”

Now that surprised me.

“For me?” I asked.

“This country he’s taking you to, his country, from what I understand it’s not only not at all what you’re used to. But much more, especially to him, you’re in danger here,” Finnie stated.

Oh dear.

This was very true.

“And he doesn’t like it,” Circe put in.

I looked to her.

This was true as well.

“I mean, like…he doesn’t like it doesn’t like it, as in, he’d go just about anywhere else happily, including knocking on the fiery gates of hell and asking if they’d let you two in to have lunch, instead of coming home. Coming here. But mostly, bringing you here,” she carried on.

Completely true.

“And since he’s in love with you—” Finnie began.

Wait a second.

“Hold on,” I interrupted. “He’s not in love with me.”

This time, Finnie stared at me.

She then cast a glance to Circe, who was also staring at me.

Circe felt her gaze, looked her way, and they both stretched their mouths in expressions that were not lost on me.

“He’s not in love with me,” I reiterated.

“Um…okay,” Circe muttered.

“Okay” meant “all right,” I’d learned.

And in this instance, she didn’t mean it at all.

“He really isn’t,” I said quietly. “He was married before. He lost her in childbirth. He loved her dearly and he still does.”

“No doubt,” Finnie agreed. “He’s still fallen in love with you.”

I felt my lips part.

“And knowing this, knowing he’s lost someone before you, would explain a good part of why he does not wish to take you somewhere he thinks is dangerous for you,” Finnie concluded.

“But,” I whispered. “He’s not in love with me.”