The fire between us was the only thing moving. Everyone else had gone still. Kael behind me to the right, Fen to the left, Cass somewhere further back.
Even Jax had stopped shifting his weight. The old man sat across the fire with his hands loose in his lap and his sad furniture-eyes on my face, waiting for me to process what he'd just said. I didn't give him the reaction he was waiting for. Not because I didn't feel it. Because feeling it fully right now would take me somewhere I couldn't afford to go.
"Tell me his name," I said. He blinked. "Sorry?" "Your name.
You've never said it."
A pause. Something in his face moved. "Oren," he said.
"Oren Mast." "Oren." I looked at him steadily.
"My father bargained six years of his life away and the thing took him anyway. You watched this hap
