She didn’t know what to say to that, but she felt his presence keenly beside her on the bench, a bare hand’s breadth separating their bodies. It was so hard not to touch him, to test the strength of his arm, the curve of his shoulder, the pressure of his leg.

Instead, she looked back. Fulmo was loping along about one hundred paces back, in the middle of the road, so the second carriage could not pass him. Either he was oblivious, or he was keeping the carriages apart on purpose. Xilsi and Ipis hadn’t yet appeared. How long did it take for horses to get saddled?

“I’m surprised you took this chance,” she said. “The others find it very odd when you show me preference. The only reason they’re not suspicious of you is because they have no idea you could even exist.”

“It doesn’t matter, you see,” he said in a dull tone.

“How can it not matter? It’s playing with fire. You saw the corpse on the burning ground. Even an emperor would be chained to the iron pillars and burned if they were found to be contaminated by Spore. That’s how the Mallow Emperor died. How much more likely a haunt, who people will fear is tainted by an ancient and evil sorcery?”

His hands tightened on the reins, but he forced them to relax before the horses took the wrong measure of his mood. “I can already feel it. Can’t you?”

“Feel what?”

“Far Boundary Pall. I couldn’t feel Flat Pall until we reached it. Even then when I drew my hand through the mist, I felt nothing, just ashes. Don’t you see?”

He swallowed, and the movement of his throat became the most interesting thing in the world. The stubborn tilt of his chin. His willow-leaf eyes were brown, as deep as any mystery, and his frown made him look angry, but it wasn’t anger. When he spoke again, his voice had turned harsh.

“It doesn’t matter what they think. I will be leaving, departing this body to go into the Pall. Then the prince can deal with their questions. I’ll be gone.”

She choked, unable to speak.

Gone.

He shifted on the bench as one might adjust to the jostling of any swift-rolling carriage. By doing so, his thigh came to rest along the length of hers, the warmth of his flesh pressed against the cool line of hers. It wasn’t a caress. It was just two people seated close on a narrow bench. That was all.

But it was everything. It was what he could give her.

She said hoarsely, “What are you, really? If you name yourself Gesavura’alalin, and we remove Gevulin, then are you not Sara’ala? Who were you before? Who will you become, when you depart the prince’s body?”