SOFIA
I didn’t wait. There was no reason to not after what I had heard and not after the way everything had shifted without explanation. I found him in the same place: the east wing. He was standing near the table, as if nothing had changed and as if the house hadn’t tightened around something he hadn’t told me about.
“You knew.” No build-up. No adjustment.
“Yes.”
I stepped further into the room. “You knew it wasn’t contained.”
“Yes.”
“And you didn’t tell me.”
“No.”
The answers came clean and direct, just as they always did, but something about them didn’t land the same anymore.
“You said this was controlled,” I said.
“It was.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
A pause. “It’s what you need.”
“No,” I said. “It’s what you decided I needed.”
Silence. I stepped closer, not slowly this t
