the tyrant—before he’d switched camps on the Day of Mist, sensing the winds were changing—and Remo and his grandfather were almost the same person. No. That wasn’t true. Gregor would never have crafted a sling for my arm.
Or hugged me.
“At least it never gets boring for prisoners in here,” he ended up saying.
“Ha.” My cheeks lifted with a cheerless smile. “Most creative correctional facility I’ve ever been to for sure.” I took another drink, then passed the bottle back to Remo.
“You’ve been to others?”
“Sook loves virtual reality arcades, and some of the games we play take place in prisons.”
“You two are close, huh?”
I bobbed my head. “He and Giya are my best friends. My only friends. Hard to trust people when you aren’t certain of their intentions.” Not that people had lined up to be my friend after Remo’s rumor about my killer blood.
His gaze slid down my face. “I remember when that dile stung you. Sook was bawling when I got there.”
I shivered at the memory of the sting, how frightened I’d been when I’d felt the venom coursing through my veins. I’d told Giya she could take the pearl earrings Nima had gifted me after her trip to the South Sea, and I’d told Sook he could take my roll-up TV—the first one in Neverra. The last thing I remembered before my heart had stopped was Giya telling me to shut up and that she hated pearls—she didn’t.
Remo put the bottle back into my hands, and I upended it. “You know what I remember? How disappointed you looked that I’d survived.”
There was a beat of silence. “Disappointed? I . . . I wasn’t disappointed.”
“Angry, then? Annoyed?” I glanced at the strong lines of his profile. “It’s fine, Remo. Water under the bridge. Air under the portal.”
“You’re terrible at reading people.”
“Oh, really?”
“Yes, really.”
I sat up a little. “What were you, then?”
“Hand over the wine.”
“Bottle’s empty.”
He got up and crossed the room to select a second bottle.
As he walked back toward me, I said, “We’re going to get wasted.”
“That’s the plan. At least, my plan.”
“I’m down with your plan.” I stood, and the room spun a little. I was already well on my way to inebriation.
I grabbed a piece of my orb to fashion a corkscrew again, then handed it over to Remo. Once he’d yanked the cork out, I chucked the gob of dust back toward the orb and sat back down, bumping my tailbone against the wall because I’d miscalculated the drop.
Forget on my way, I’d reached my destination.
Remo tipped the bottle to his mouth and drank. And then drank some more. When he sat back next to me, he said, “Scared and relieved.”
“What?”
“How I felt the day you got stung by a dile.”
It took my befuddled brain a full minute to compute what he was admitting. “Why?”
“Because, Amara . . .” Was that a blush snaking over his jaw again? Instead of teasing him about it, I waited to see if he would add anything. Because, Amara, wasn’t much of an explanation. “What good is a hero without a villain?”
My eyes widened, and then I blinked. And then I laughed. “I’m your villain?” In between waves of hilarity, I said, “What a villain I make. Scared of ghosts and a complete klutz on stairs.” I wiped the corners of my eyes and elbowed him with my good arm. “No one would read that story.”
Although he hadn’t even cracked a smile, his eyes glittered. Even his lips seemed to shine. It was probably all the wine I’d ingested that made his features all glowy. When I lifted my eyes back to his, I found him staring at me with a disquieting intensity.
My breathing hitched, scattering too much oxygen throughout my body. My head felt light, my chest too. And then all of me felt too tight. I snatched the wine from his hands and drank. “Will I still be the villain in your story if we get out of here?”
“When.”
I frowned.
“When we get out of here. Not if. And if you stop being the villain, then I stop being a hero.”
“You saved the villain so many times that you’ve earned hero-status for life.”
“Yeah?” His voice sounded funny, all at once hoarse and slightly high-pitched. He’d apparently had too much wine also.
I leaned my head on his shoulder. “You might’ve even become the villain’s hero.” I did not just say that. I clamped my lids shut, wishing I could incinerate the words. “That was the wine talking.”