It was not my mind he affected. He did not place thoughts into me without my permission, nor did he whisper my name as if from a dream or delusion. No ghoulish phenomenon. No devil’s whimsy.

I could hear him not because he spoke with his lips. Instead, I could feel what he meant. Like when a roaring fire spreads its warmth or when a glassy lake emits blistering cold. The warmth, the cold—they are messages. And though we choose to listen or to ignore, we cannot deny them their speech.

His intention. As evident as a blanket caressing a cheek or breeze through tendrils of hair. I knew this not because I intruded on some private thought sanctuary of his, but, somehow, because he shared his feeling with me. Because he wanted me.

He wanted me to come closer.

Desire is a language. The words are carved from restraint, the silences from indulgence. I spoke the tongue fluently, for there were many things I desired and few that I attained. If unmet wants were a discipline, I was a master.

I stepped toward the pyre, the air chilled and damp but unable to prevent my movement. I might have said it was against my better judgment but I was not in the habit of judging myself. I left that to the Brauns and the Femmes of Lykke. To those who had found in themselves no other worth but the destruction of mine.

<<Closer still>>.

And so I went. Not only to see what a pyre could want with me on a night when the moon hung pregnant with mystery and shrouded in black, but because the ripples on the pyre’s grayed skin told me he was, in fact, too cold. And a travesty such as freezing an innocent to force him into servitude was within my power to remedy. I could not free the pyre, but I could show him a glimpse of my humanity.

I lifted my coat up to his chest, pressing my palm to it so it did not drop to the floor. The bit of skin I happened to touch was colder than the icicles that hung from the mouth of the Lykken caves. I withdrew my hand, and the coat crumpled to my feet.

<<Closer>>.

But there was no way to be closer. Unless he meant I was to press my body against his. Which, while such a notion would have increased his warmth, it would have also decreased my self-respect.

I could not ask him what he wanted. What he truly wanted. No words could pass between us. So I did what I knew best. The skill I dedicated my life to. The work of my being.

I listened.

And then, slowly—and I must admit, with a hint of hesitation—I raised my right arm and moved my wrist to his lips.

His eyes—the white irises set in vibrant beds of gold—smiled at me.