said, exasperated, and threw her arms around him. She was delighted to find that she could feel him. He wore a thick sweater she’d never seen before, sort of a dull gray, a bit misshapen. When she pressed against it, the wool felt scratchy on her cheek.
Slowly, his arms circled her—tentatively at first, as if she might evaporate; then, as he became convinced of her solidity, almost painfully tight. But when he pulled back, he was frowning. “Strange. I can touch you, but—”
You can’t feel me in your head. I know. I can’t feel you, either. Instead of sensations from his body, it was her own body she felt, back in the tower. Which, she became aware, was pulling at her. I think it’s because I’m already in your head. I came through your head to get here.
“So you are a hallucination.”
Sort of. Not really. It’s complicated.
“Of course it is,” he said with faint, deadened amusement. “It’s you. It’s us. We’re always complicated.” He began to walk away. She found herself pulled along.
Where are we going?
“Anywhere Elly isn’t going to catch me talking to myself like a courtier with a vial problem,” he said. They passed the stands of hops, dry and dead, and the empty but still fragrant piggery, and then came to the pasture. Judah had never come this way before. She’d always come around by the stables, even before Darid. Kitchen staff swatted and shooed; stablemen and dairymaids didn’t care.
Gavin stopped. “All right, hallucination or no: I’m sorry about the stableman, Judah. And everything else. I should have told you the truth. I don’t blame you for being angry with me.”
Gavin—
He held up a hand. “But it’s not fair to Elly, the way you’ve been ignoring her notes. Without you, all she has is me and Theron, and neither of us is much use.”
What notes? She hasn’t sent any notes.
“She gives them to the magus for you.”
And oh, gods, her memory was such garbage, she didn’t know. If she’d been given notes from Elly, would she have bothered to read them or cared what they said? Was there a pile of them sitting in the tower somewhere, ignored, buried in the leaves?
She tried to picture the magus handing her a slip of paper. The image didn’t feel true at all. The anger she felt: now, that felt true.
He hasn’t been giving them to me, she said.
Gavin frowned. “Jude, what’s going on?” He pushed up one sleeve of the rough sweater and held out his arm. “Does it have anything to do with this?”
The inside of his arm was covered—as hers was, in the tower—with the magus’s tidy, careful cuts. They were more healed than hers; his were a healthy pink. Judah felt even worse. Of course her cuts made him bleed, too. It hadn’t occurred to her. Yes, she said.
Gavin put a hand on her arm, his jaw set with worry. “Come down. We’ll figure it out.”
Tears pricked at Judah’s eyes. I want to.
“So do it.”
I want to right now. I think in a minute, I won’t want to anymore. The tower—makes me not care about things. She was sure now. Out of the tower, all of the dead places were alive again. Not getting the notes Elly had sent her made her angry. Seeing Gavin made her want to slap him, or hug him, or both. Darid was still gone, though. Where the bitter ache of his absence should have been, she felt nothing. Meanwhile, her body—or the tower? Or her body in the tower—pulled even harder at her. The world was becoming shimmery and unreal, and the place in her chest where the rope connected felt tense and stretched.
Gavin, oblivious, was shaking his head. “I’ll come get you.”
The stairs—
“I’ll be careful. If that lying sneak of a magus can make it—”
I think the tower helps him. I think it helped me.
“Do you want me to try or not?” Now it was Gavin who sounded angry.
She hesitated. The magus had told her he could teach her how to unbind herself from Gavin; she remembered that very clearly. He’d seemed certain. He’d felt certain. She had been inside his head; she’d seen his most dearly-held and shameful memories. Anneka. Caterina. The blond man dying at the table. She didn’t think he could lie to her.
But he hadn’t delivered Elly’s notes. He kept a locked place in his head. With everything she’d seen, what could possibly be left to hide? The only answer: something he didn’t want her