“Love. Desire. Either. Both. But no, you’re not quite right. There’s a truth at the core of me. Just like there is to you.” He reaches out, and she’s close enough that he can trail fingers up her arm, along her collarbone. “I can see it. So can the Lady. Or She could, if She were not too preoccupied with jealousy. It’s not like Her, to miss the knife but block the stab.” Up, up, touching her neck now, then her jaw, then her lips. He traces their outline. She thinks of biting him. “But Ser Voyne is a prize, I’ll grant you that. Something so strong, turned so brittle with mishandling.”

“And so She’s jealous?” It’s laughable, but Treila remembers the fury in Her eyes in the garden.

“She thinks She is unmistakable. Entirely unique. The brightest star in all the sky. What a blow, to see Her creature mistake a grubby servant girl for her Lady. And that blow leaves Her too angry to ask why Her creature made the mistake at all.”

He leaves the wall, drops his hands to her waist, her hips.

“Why didn’t you eat? It wasn’t what we were serving,” he asks.

“I couldn’t be sure whether it was a gift or a bargain. I like to know what something costs before I pay for it.”

“And yet your body must have been screaming for it.”

“I’m used to resisting what my body screams for.”

He leans in, lips against the shell of her ear. Treila knows better than to give in, to luxuriate, but she can still appreciate it. Still tilt her head to the side. She doesn’t let him steer her against anything that would block her escape, stands firm where she is, but she pushes her hips into his touch.

“Somebody’s told you to be careful,” he guesses. He rolls their hips together and he shudders just as much as she does. “You were hungry in the garden. But something happened between then and now.”

“I saw what you were planting.”

He pulls back, grins. “A little transubstantiation. I’m glad I had an audience. But there is something else. Trapped in these walls, you will need to eat. You know that. Unless . . .”

She waits. She runs her hands along his chest. She pulls at his hair again, and he sighs, eyes half-lidded.

“If you have a way out, I would suggest you take it,” he murmurs. “Whatever the cost. You won’t have the choice soon.”

“And if I stay?” she asks, knowing she won’t, but curious all the same. She’s curious about that fury in the Lady’s eyes. About what, exactly, this creature under her hands is. About how it would feel for him to don Ser Voyne’s guise again, and sink to his knees, and . . .