“Okay,” soothed Marissa. She wrapped her arms around him from behind, holding him, putting her chin on his shoulder. “Okay, Ángel.”

“What I see,” Chandler said, gently but implacably, “is someone who is strong, but who was caught in an impossible situation. I see how independent you are. I do. But do you see the contortions you’re turning right now, to convince yourself that what happened was okay?” She ticked off points on her fingers. “You were imprisoned. You were under constant, constant surveillance. He watched you sleep. When you disabled the cameras, he made you feel guilty about it. Anytime you asserted your independence, he made you feel bad about it, like it was hurting him. He used your estrangement from your family. He used your loneliness. How could any of that be acceptable?”

Ángel was silent.

“You were fucked by the elf-lord, Ángel! And I’m culpable for that,” Chandler said. “I’ll regret it for the rest of my life.”

“So will I,” said Victor humbly.

“Goddamn it,” said Ángel. He looked at Marissa. “Do you think that too? Do you think—”

“I don’t know what to think.” She rested her forehead against his. “I don’t ever want you to feel ashamed of anything, baby. But I know you sometimes do impulsive things, and regret them later.”

“He needed me,” whispered Ángel. “No one ever needed me, Marissa, not once in my whole life. Is it so bad to be with someone who needed me?”

“I don’t know,” she said. Then: “Yes, of course it’s okay to help someone. But maybe it wasn’t okay for him to make you feel like you had to help.”

“It wasn’t like that.”

She pressed her lips together. “I love you no matter what it was like, okay?”

But she didn’t believe him. They were twisting everything, taking the loveliest thing that had ever happened to him and turning it inside-out, into something disgusting. They were wrong. In that moment he ached for Oberon to hold him, to tell him again that he was safe.

“I just— I just need to talk to him, okay?”

“Then do it,” Marissa said simply.

He got up, fumbled in the pocket of the too-big sweats for a business card: Agent Neil Jeremy. He went to the phone on the bedside table and called the number.

He got Jeremy’s secretary. She put him through, and the DOR agent immediately asked if he was rested and well enough for another meeting and more questions.

“Sure,” said Ángel, picking up the hotel pen, doodling on the hotel pad. “But first I want to talk to Oberon. What’s his number?”

“Oberon’s been really busy,” said Jeremy. “What with the arrival of the new envoy.”