“Yes.”

There was a long period of silence at that point, where he sat in front of his cooling bowl without touching the stuff, and she played with her oatmeal, making little S’s with the tip of her spoon.

The argument they were having played out in the air between them, his please-go-for-your-own-good’s at war with her not-until-I-absolutely-have-to’s. There was no reason to actually say the words. She wasn’t going to budge. And that meant his only option was to throw her over his shoulder and caveman her down to the training center.

Finally, Selena couldn’t stand it, and had to change the subject.

“I sometimes wonder . . .” She shrugged. “I mean, what if everyone’s lied about death? What if there is no Fade, but instead you’re just stuck in your body forever, conscious but unable to move?”

Great. She’d wanted to try to lighten the mood.

Nice. Try.

“Well, bodies do . . .” He cleared his throat. “You know, rot.”

“Hmm, good point.”

“Although, as afterlife nightmares go, for me? I worry about the whole zombie-apocalypse thing.” He picked up his spoon and started to eat, still holding on to her free hand. “That would suck. You kick it and then you roam the earth, stinking up the place on an Atkins diet that, like, never ends.”

She put up her spoon to stop him. “Well, now, hold on a minute—see, you’d just be hungry, right? And if you found people to eat, then, you know, life is pretty good if you’re a zombie.”

“Not if the lower half of your face drops off. Without a jaw, how do you feed yourself? Then you’re just hungry and you can’t do anything about it. Total suckage.”

“Straws.”

“What?”

“You just need straws.”

“Hard to fit a femur through a straw.”

“And a blender. Straws and a blender. Then you’re set.”

With bark of sound, Trez threw his head back and laughed so hard, it was a wonder he didn’t wake half the mansion up.

“Oh, my God, that is so sick.” He leaned in and kissed her. “So fucking sick.”

Suddenly, she was smiling, too—so hard her cheeks hurt. “Totally sick. Is this what they call gallows humor?”

“Yup. Especially if we keep riffin’.” Trez grew serious. “And okay, so you don’t go.”

“What? To the gallows? That is a relief.”

“Down to see Jane. If you don’t want to go, I’m not going to make you.”

Selena exhaled in a rush. “Thank you. I really appreciate that.”

“Don’t thank me. It’s not my call. It’s yours.” He ran his spoon around the inside of his bowl. “I think it’s important that you have as much say as possible in any and every part of your life, especially the disease and the way it’s managed. I’m guessing you feel like you have no choice about so much of this . . . fate . . . that’s come to you, and that makes the opportunities to call the shots especially important.” He glanced over at her. “I may have an opinion, and you can bet your ass I’ll tell you what it is, but the last thing I want you to feel is pressure from me. You’ve got enough penning you in already. I’m not going to add to that.”

“How do you know . . . God, it’s like you know exactly what I’m thinking.”

He shrugged and his eyes got a faraway look in them. Then he tapped the side of his head. “Good guess.” He refocused on her. “So, the question is, where do you want to go?”

“Excuse me?”

“Where do you want to go? The clinic is not on the list . . . what is?”

Selena sat back in her chair. Now she was the one staring at the windows. “I like Rehvenge’s Great Camp, if that’s what you mean?”

“Be bolder. Think bigger. Come on, there has to be somewhere exciting. The Taj Mahal, Paris—”

“We can’t go to Paris.”

“Says who?”

“Ahh . . .”

“Never met Ahhh, don’t know him, don’t care how big he is—if he’s standing in our way? I’ma murder the son of a bitch.”

“You are so adorable.” Selena bent in and kissed him on the mouth. Then tried to force her brain to cough up something, anything. “Isn’t this just my luck. Finally get a free pass . . . and can’t come up with—oh! I know.”

“Tell me, and I’ll make it happen.”

“I want to go to Circle the World.”

Trez sat back as well. “The restaurant?”

“Yup.” She wiped her mouth with a napkin. “I want to go to Circle the World and have dinner.”

“That’s the one that goes around, that’s on the top of—”

“The biggest building in Caldwell! I saw it on TV once when I was keeping Layla company in her room. You can sit right next to the glass and look out all over the city as you eat.” She frowned as he seemed to swallow hard—and not because he’d taken a big spoonful of the oatmeal. “Are you okay?”

“Oh, yeah, absolutely.” Trez nodded and puffed his chest out as he went all male on her. “I think it’s a great idea. We’ll have Fritz make the reservation for tonight—I’ve got some pull in this city so it won’t be a problem. And they have dinner service until nine and ten o’clock.”

Selena started to smile, picturing herself in one of the Chosen robes, her hair done properly, her body normal . . . and Trez across the glossy black table they’d shown on the TV ad, with the napkins so white, the plates so square, the silver glinting in the candlelight.

Perfect.

Romantic.

And nothing to do with being sick.

“I am so excited,” she said.

The next bite of oatmeal she put in her mouth was sweet and creamy and altogether the most perfect . . . what did humans call it? Brake feast?

That made no sense. But who cared.

“It’s a date, isn’t it,” she realized. “Praise to the Virgin Scribe, I have a date!”

Trez laughed, the sound a rumble in his broad chest. “You’d better believe you do. And I’ma treat you like a queen. My queen.”

As they both tucked in, she thought, wow, such a strange emotional landscape this all was, deep valleys of despair, followed by vast vistas that were so emotionally pure and beautiful, she felt honored to have them. It was almost as if her life, with its compressed time span, had been shoved together like a bolt of cloth, that which might have been smooth going and unremarkable, now undulating with great resonance.

She would have preferred the luxury of centuries. But in this moment, right now, she felt so very, deeply alive. In a way she couldn’t say she had been before.

“Thank you,” she said abruptly.

“For what?”

She stared down into her oatmeal, feeling a blush hit her cheeks. “For tonight. It’s the best night I’ve ever had.”

“We aren’t there yet, my queen.”

“It’s still the best night”—she looked into his dark eyes—“of my entire life.”

TWENTY-EIGHT

iAm woke up to the smell of soup, and as his brain started firing again, there was no Is this a dream? bullshit going on for him. In spite of the fact that he’d been out cold from a concussion, not one second of what had landed him in this cell in the Queen’s palace was lost on him: not the quick change of clothes in front of Almost Abraham Lincoln, not the back-end approach through the Territory, not the blow to the head followed by his brief wakey-wakey before.

The soup, though, was a surprise. It was something he remembered from his childhood, a blend of pumpkin and cream, spice and rice.

And there was another scent in the cell. The same one that filled his nose when that priest had come to double-check his markings.

Opening his eyes, he—

Recoiled.

A maichen, or maid, was kneeling before him, her body and head draped in the pale blue of her station, her face covered with a mesh mask that showed him absolutely nothing of her eyes or features. In her hands, a fine wooden tray held the bowl, a spoon, a carafe, and a glass, as well as a large torn-off piece of bread.

No priest. No one else was with them.

He inhaled again—and then realized that the female must have come in with the court offical before and he just hadn’t seen her.