Page 88 of Fortune's Blade

Ray stared at me for a moment, as if he hadn’t expected that. Just as I did not expect his answer. “You don’t want my thoughts.”

“And why not?

“Because you won’t like them!”

He turned to go again, but the door did not open. He put his back into it, and then his shoulder, pushing and shoving against it, but there were two ogres on the other side holding it shut, and then a third who I snared as he walked down the corridor. Ray finally gave up and turned on me, scowling.

“The queen won’t like it much if I punch through her damned door!”

“You would prefer that to talking to me?”

“Yes!”

I couldn’t help it; I felt hurt. And because I was unusually emotional tonight, my eyes welled up with tears. He saw, and his own face went through a paroxysm of emotions.

It finally settled on defeat.

He walked over and sat down beside me. “Don’t do that,” he said, and wiped my tears away with some of the left-over bandages.

“I don’t want to defeat you,” I whispered, because it was in his mind, too. “I just want to talk.”

“Yeah, but you’ve had a day. It can wait.”

“No, it can’t.” I wondered how to explain to him how many years I had spent waiting, having to be so patient. If I wanted to go somewhere, I had to hope that Dory wanted it, too. If I craved a particular food, I had to try to plant that thought in her mind. If I wanted to talk—

I gave up, because it was impossible to explain how little I had ever been able to talk to anyone. It had seemed so strange, so wonderfully and amazingly strange, to be able to vocalize my thoughts and have others actually hear me and answer back. I hadn’t realized before how much speaking forced a person to focus on what they were saying, and to make vague ideas come together into coherent sentences.

You couldn’t hide so easily when you had to put things into words. And an idea that seemed to make sense in your head was less so when spoken aloud. I was thinking more as a result than I ever had, and thinking clearer.

But it was still difficult sometimes to explain how I felt. Even though it was easier to express myself with Ray than with anyone else. He heard half of my thoughts anyway, and helped me to put my words together. And he liked to talk!

It was my favorite thing about him, and I had many favorite things.

“Don’t do that,” he repeated tightly.

“Why not?” I got up and faced him, wanting to understand. “You like me—”

He laughed, a sudden burst of sound.

“You do,” I insisted.

“Yes.”

“Then why?”

He stared up at me, and I couldn’t claim that he was guarded now, with all the pain I felt mirrored in his eyes. “You know why. But you don’t need to hear it now.”

“I do. I want to understand—” I spread an arm and gestured around. “Something. Anything. But especially you.”

This was absolutely true. Unlike Dory, I had never had a family. I never had anyone until Ray, and now he was rejecting me.

“I am not rejecting you!”

“Then what would you call this?”

He shook his head wildly, like a man possessed. And then he exploded, coming off of the bed so fast that I could barely track him, getting in my face. Reminding me of what he was.

“It’s not what I am,” he hissed. “It’s what I’m not. You think I didn’t hear you and that bitch ass pixie today? You want a kid. That’s why you’re doing this, but I can’t give you one. I can’t give you anything!

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