Mira didn't sleep much.
She lay in the dark and thought about what she had said and what he had said and the difference between a man who withheld information to protect himself and a man who withheld information because he genuinely believed it was right and was wrong.
Damien was the second kind.
That didn't make it not hurt. But it changed the shape of the hurt.
By four in the morning she had the bones of it sorted. He had a pattern — the Voidblood, the Gift Echo, the Council motion. He processed things, confirmed them, decided what she needed and when. He had been doing it carefully. Even kindly. But he had been doing it, and she needed him to stop.
She got up at five. Took the tea from outside her door. Stood at the window until the compound started moving.
Then she went to his o
