Page 132 of Daughter of No Worlds

“Good.” His eyes flicked to me, and there was something in them that I rarely saw on Sammerin’s face. Regret. “I hope you never do. But I think about it often. And I think about what would have happened if I had been there one day earlier.”

He said this, as always, calmly. So calmly that it took me a minute to realize exactly what he was admitting. When I did, I was stunned. Speechless.

All these years, and I’d had no idea that he had been carrying that kind of guilt. He’d never told me. Never so much as revealed a hint of it.

“You shouldn’t,” I murmured, at last. “It wouldn’t have made a difference.”

But Sammerin just shook his head and said, “It was my job.”

To keep me — to keep Reshaye — under control. His particular abilities, control of human flesh, made him the perfect failsafe. He could force my body down, force my lungs to shrivel or limbs to lock. Terrible. Humiliating. Painful.

But effective.

That was, after all, why the Orders had partnered us. He was the leash.

“I told you to go,” I said, and even as the words left my lips, I knew they were an understatement. I’dforcedhim out. I was grieving the lives lost in Sarlazai, horrified by myself and the creature that lived inside me, heartbroken by Nura’s betrayal. And I let all of that consume me until I was cruel and selfish and fuckingstupid.I just wanted to be alone.

Well. I got my wish, didn’t I.

I leaned forward. “Listen, Sammerin. That day was a tragically perfect set of circumstances. A flawlessly aligned, cosmic event of cascading shit. It doesn’t matter what might or might not have happened if you were there, because you weren’t. But even if you were, maybe it wouldn’t have changed anything. Maybe the shit would have just cascaded a little differently, and there would have been one more body dragged out of that house.”

I blinked away that brief flash of possibility before I let it settle.

Because therein lay the one certainty: if that had happened, I wouldn’t have made it through these last eight years alive.

He let out a long breath, but said nothing, his eyes lowered.

“Alright?” I pressed.

“Alright.”

Then his gaze met mine, and the well of emotions in it was so unnervingly stark — the reluctant setting down of a weight.

“I never want to see a day like that again,” he said. “So yes. I will go.”

Relief flooded me.

“Thank you,” I murmured.

The only words I could find, even though it was too weak of a response.

Sammerin shrugged. “You’ve saved my life enough times. And…” His expression hardened, just for a moment. “…Tisaaanh deserves better.”

Then he cocked his head, smirking. “Perhaps next time, though, you could choose a more mundane paramour. Maybe a baker. Then we could just sit around eating pies instead of throwing our lives into such exciting disarray.”

I barked a scoff, grateful to let the tension break. “It’s not like that.”

“Hm.” His eyes narrowed. Then he added, “I expect to be paid exorbitantly, of course.”

“Of course,” I replied.

As if there was enough money in the world.

* * *

I hadone more stop to make before I would return to the Towers, and I dully dreaded it. Yet another thing that I never thought I would have to do again. I wove through the dim alleyways of downtown, stopping at a familiar, dusty storefront. I couldn’t help but eye the place where we had passed the man with the green coat and matching bird last time Tisaanah and I had come here. Nowhere to be found now.

Via looked thoroughly unsurprised to see me — so unsurprised that it was a little unnerving — and invited me in with casual nonchalance. She wore only a garish, silky robe tied loosely around her waist. As she led me back to her workshop, I earned a lazy wave from an equally half-dressed man lounging on a sofa.

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