“I’m sorry,” Isaac said again, looking at the floor.

“When I got here, though, all I could think was that it was good to see a familiar face.” Alice shook her head. “At least until you started giving me the silent treatment.”

“I’m—”

Alice rolled her eyes. “Please stop apologizing.”

“Sorry,” Isaac muttered, then realized what he’d said and started giggling. The laughter was infectious, and Alice found herself grinning.

“I’m glad I got the chance to tell you,” Isaac said. “I wouldn’t want you to think I was just . . .”

“Being a jerk?”

“Yeah.” He met her eyes. “Especially if that was . . . the last time we saw each other.”

There was a long silence. Alice was blushing again, but she couldn’t look away. His eyes were brown, she noted inanely, with a ring of green specks. Pretty eyes.

Isaac looked down, breaking the spell.

“So what are you going to do now?” she said. “About Jacob. I mean, Evander. Whichever.”

“I don’t know.” His frown returned. “I had only just worked up the nerve to tell you about it.”

“If he is being controlled by Torment,” Alice said, “that might give us a way out of this. Geryon and the others wouldn’t need to punish him if it wasn’t his fault.”

“You don’t know them,” Isaac said darkly. “But I guess it’s possible.”

“We could even convince your master to take him back!” Alice felt a surge of excitement. She had been wondering what would happen to Jacob, in the event that they succeeded, and this seemed like the perfect answer. “You can be together again!”

Isaac’s face was a mix of hope and his usual black certainty that something would go wrong. He nodded, grudgingly. “If we could do that . . .”

“It’ll work. I know it’ll work.”

“Yeah.” He scratched his cheek again. “Listen. I know you have your own reasons for being here—”

“Not this again.”

Isaac coughed. “I just wanted to say thank you. For coming to help Jacob, whatever made you do it.”

“Oh. Well. Yes.” Now it was Alice’s turn to feel embarrassed and look away. “I know I told everyone I would do it alone, but I’m glad you stayed to help. It makes things . . . easier.”

“Right.” Isaac looked back over his shoulder, toward the others, and cleared his throat loudly. “I suppose we had better get some rest too.”

Dex’s moon-cloth blankets and pillows were as soft and fine as any down, and the thick carpets were as good as a featherbed. Alice suspected she would have gotten to sleep just as well if it had been a bed of nails, though; the past few hours had left her exhausted and aching. It seemed like no sooner had she put her head down on the pillow than Dex was shaking her awake, but she guessed she’d been asleep for hours.