Page 59 of Enchantment of Silver and Sea
I met his amber gaze.
He was different somehow. Still handsome, but different.
I waited for that usual flush to creep up my cheeks. For that simple, biological reaction to having an attractive man stare at me like he was struggling not to picture me naked. Instead, a melancholy feeling drifted over me.
What had changed about him in the few days that I was gone?
“I’m not really thinking about anything in particular,” I said with a dismissive wave of my hand. “Just got lost in thought, I guess.”
Zander continued to look at me for a moment, refusing to avert his eyes.
Something in his expression made me feel tense. Like he thought if he stared at me long enough, I would reveal what was truly on my mind. Or maybe it was more than that. It was like he was studying me. Trying to make sense of me.
When he finally turned back to Brielle, asking a follow-up question about whatever it was she had last said, I was relieved.
I shifted my focus back to my food. My untouched food.
After lunch, I was passing through the main atrium of the Knowledge Center, headed back to the Library, when someone caught my arm.
Even though he had made to head back in the direction of the city, I somehow wasn’t surprised when I turned to find Zander standing there.
“Hey, Maila.”
No nickname. I don’t think that had happened since we first met years ago.
“Are you sure everything’s alright?”
My immediate reaction was to insist that it was and then regurgitate one of my go-to lies about a project from Cato or getting lost in a daydream or some other dismissive shit that frankly, I was getting tired of myself. But the sincerity in his eyes had me giving as honest an answer as I felt comfortable giving.
“Some of the projects I’ve been working on lately have had me thinking about Outside,” I began slowly. “About the people trying to survive out there. About the people whodon’tsurvive. It’s really…weighing on me, I guess.”
Zander seemed to realize then that he was still gripping my arm because he abruptly let it drop. “I know what you mean,” he said, running a hand through his cropped hair. “Even though they’re out there for a reason, you still feel bad for them, you know?”
Something flickered in me. “They’re not all out there ‘for a reason.’ There are several generations of people out there who didn’t have the luxury of living in a city like Cyllene when The Awakening hit. There are also generations of people descended from the citizens we’ve exiled, who themselves have done nothing wrong.”
Zander was studying me again. There was something in his face, a slight shifting, that signaled that he had shifted from concerned-friend mode to Enforcer-assessing-a-situation mode.
“That’s true,” he said finally. His words were an agreement. But something in his tone wasn’t. Not quite.
I should’ve just accepted his polite acknowledgement and moved on. Yet I couldn’t let that note in his voice go. “I’m sure as an Enforcer, you probably feel differently about them.”
“No, I agree,” he said quickly. “It’s just…it’s complicated, you know?”
“In what way?”
Now Zander didn’t look like he was trying to understand me. He looked like he was openly wary of me. He shifted on hisfeet, his tell when he was uneasy. “Sometimes we have to make hard decisions to keep Cyllene safe. If there were no rules, where would we be? If we let in every person who wandered up to the gates, where would we be?”
“It’s not that simple, though.” Why was I pushing this? Why did I care what he thought? But I couldn’t stop myself. “You can have rules without kicking out every person who doesn’t agree with you and leaving them to die. You can have restrictions on who can come and go without keeping literally everyone out. You can choose to care about other people, instead of always putting yourself—your needs, your safety, your well-being—first.”
If Zander was wary before, he looked flat out horrified now. His amber eyes were wide, his mouth hanging open slightly.
“You’re an Enforcer. You’re aware, I’m guessing, of the man that The Council exiled last week?”
I was met with silence. It was my cue to shut up. At least, it should have been.
“I had to help Cato sort and catalogue his books. He said that Enforcers were coming the next day to move everything out of his house. Were you one of them?”
The question was so beyond inappropriate that Zander would have been justified in turning on his heel and walking away. I was the one who had asked the question, and still I could barely believe it when he actually answered it.
