here was something that sounded like dru behind him, a soft fumbling voice, but he could barely hear anything over the rushing in his ears. He didn’t know what to think. He didn’t know to think; he might’ve been sick, if he’d anything to be sick with. If it’d come sudden, this, whatever it was, Tom couldn’t account for it, except all of the sudden the bright sun and the sharp sky and the birds wheeling happy-go-lucky round the distant spires seemed like a mockery.
He kept picturing Madeleine Gosselin, thinking how he’d taken her aside and told her gentle-like as he could she didn’t have to be a part of this. This! Now, he thought, if she’d known, if they’d known –
I have misspoken, he heard behind him, quiet but clear as a bell. Tom blinked and swallowed dryly. He turned, halfway, enough to see Ezre standing a few paces away. The Hexx’s jaw was set. Tom didn’t know he’d seen this emotion playing out across his face, before – he didn’t quite know what it was. He didn’t know how to read Ezre, plain and simple. Even when he did smile, or frown, or laugh. It seemed to him in that moment he’d never known how to take it; it seemed to him in that moment that the shape of Ezre, from the worried – worried? – set of his jaw to the swaddle of bright-dyed wool round his slight frame was a word in a script he couldn’t read.
He looked toward the library, and Tom looked toward the library, too. He didn’t know why he’d stopped, but it forced him to catch his breath. He shut his eyes, wiping sweat from his brow. His cheeks were burning hot to the touch.
Such a public moment. Tom’s lips twitched. He could feel a heat welling up behind his eyes, and an awful, familiar prickling. He forced them down, but he knew they’d come back; they always did. He didn’t know how kov like Ezre got by. He envied his rhakor, in that moment, more than anything. He’d never known a thing about rhakor, though he'd've saved himself more than a few beatings, as a lad, if he could've been more of a man. He spilt everything he felt every which way, even wearing another man’s skin, and he didn’t know why. For what could’ve been the hundredth time, he wondered – this face wasn’t his, this body wasn’t his, so why wasn’t it easy to wipe every trace of himself off of them?
He was still flushed with embarrassment, but he’d managed to keep himself from crying. He took a deep breath and looked at Ezre, fitting something he hoped was a polite smile to his face. “I will find my balance again, Vks-cxîl. Please. But right now, I have to – I must –”
He broke off, looking down. His eyes followed the Hexx’s tattooed hand as it gestured between them. He was standing too close for Tom’s comfort – a kov halfway across the courtyard would’ve been standing too close for Tom’s comfort – but all he could do was watch the flash of the sun on his brightly-colored sleeve.
… you are a busy politician and we are children chasing ghost stories, after all.
“I am not a politician.” The words were out of his mouth before he knew he’d speak. He jumped at the sound of his own voice; a wince spasmed visibly across his face, and he cringed. Then he stiffened, knowing what he’d just given away with that wince, flushing with embarrassment. For a long moment, all he could do was stand across from Ezre, staring down at his feet with a set jaw. It took an immense effort to look up at his face.
But he saw no cruel humor in the galdor’s face, despite what’d seemed to him a cruel joke, all the crueler for how out-of-place it was. Ezre was watching him just as intently, his palms pressed together. Tom stood studying him, and slowly, once again, his breath eased, though his eyes stayed a little wide.
He glanced over at the path Ezre had nodded to, licking his lips again. When he looked back at Ezre, he looked first at his hands; he thought of the blood they’d shared, in the garden. He was still nauseous, and so, he realized, was Ezre, doubtless. They were both tired to the bones.
“All right,” he said a little hoarsely, turning toward the path. “I misspoke, too. I’m damned tired. I want to try to understand. I just don’t – you keep making light of it, of all of it, and I don’t know why. I don’t understand anything.”