I turned and headed for my bedroom.
"Ris?"
I paused and looked over my shoulder. "What?"
She hesitated. "Remember that Azriel isn't human. You can't expect him to react the way any human—or non-human, for that matter—would."
"I don't expect anything of him, Ilianna."
"Maybe that's the problem."
I snorted. "He's here for one reason only—the keys. He needs to secure them for his side, and he needs me to do it. No matter what I may or may not feel for him, that's the one truth that can never be ignored."
"But what if it's no longer the only truth?"
"It's the only truth that matters. In the end, he has his world, and I have mine, and as the saying goes, never the twain shall meet."
"Maybe you need to trust fate a little bit more. Or maybe you just need to enjoy what you currently have and not worry about the future."
How could I not worry about the future when the reality was I might not have one? "Fate is the one that got us into this mess, Ilianna. I'm not trusting her to get us out of it." I waved a hand. "I'll see you tomorrow."
With that, I went to bed and—surprisingly, given how much sleep I'd already had that day—slept.
A death march tone woke me. I groaned and rolled over onto my back, rubbing the sleep from my eyes and cursing the idiot on the phone for waking me. Then it twigged that the idiot was Hunter, and I lunged to answer it. But I hit the VOICE ONLY button—I had a feeling she wouldn't appreciate learning that I was still in bed.
"I haven't received the crime-scene report yet," I said, glancing at the clock. It was nine in the morning—no wonder my stomach was grumbling. What little I'd eaten yesterday, I'd thrown up last night. "So I really haven't got much more to report than what I've already said."
"I have no intention of discussing either your report or the Directorate's," she replied, voice snappish. Definitely not in a happy mood this morning.