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“You’ve made your point,” he murmured. “Anything else you think I should know?”

“You’re a dickhead.”

“Another point taken.”

“I’ve bent over backward today, trying to be nice to you and make it up to you. Last night, I mean. I know I forced you into what you did because I ran away from you—though you could’ve handled that a lot better, honestly. You don’t have much of a personal touch. You suck at it.”

He let out an exasperated sigh. “Is that what this was all about? Making something up to me? That’s not how it works, Janna.”

“None of this is how it works, Vale, and in case you forgot, I’m new to all this.”

“I don’t need you to make anything up. Why would you go out of your way, when all I’m doing is my job?”

I looked out over the south side of the building, over the almost endless stretch of buildings.

So many people. So many stories. None of them would believe what I had found myself stuck in the middle of.

“I guess because I wasn’t raised with it. I don’t expect it. If it was an everyday thing, deserving your protection, I wouldn’t think it was a big deal. I would accept it.”

“You weren’t raised with servants, then?”

“You know I was.” I had seen the research peeking out of his backpack after he fed. “And I didn’t like that, either. It always felt unnecessary. Just another reason for me to never fit in. My brother? Oh, Jesus, he loved it. Probably still does. I could never get used to it.”

“This is just the way things are. You’ll have to try.”

“And I’m not supposed to care whether you’re comfortable, or bored, or miserable?”

“No. You’re not. Our lives don’t intersect. They were never intended to.”

“I don’t want any of this.” I looked up at him. The wind whipped through his hair, brushing it back from his face. His stupid face. “I release you. I won’t live in a single room with someone I’m supposed to ignore unless there’s an emergency—which, by the way, won’t happen now. If you think I’ll step foot in one of those clubs again, you’re nuts.”

“It’s not a matter of you releasing me,” he explained. “It doesn’t matter whether or not you want me with you, because you’re not the one who assigned me. If your mother—”

“Who I’ve never met,” I muttered.

“—or the High Council want me here with you, this is where I’ll stay. It isn’t my fault you live in a single room.”

“I don’t want this. There’s no reason for any of it.”

“That’s not for you to say.”

“I hate you,” I whispered, still looking out over the skyline.

And it had started out as a nice day, too.

I had wanted to make him happy as a way to thank him. Was I more naïve than I had ever imagined? Yes, and much less of a hard ass, too. I had finally found somebody I didn’t have to be hard toward, and all I wanted was to show him what he had missed over a hundred years. I wanted to share things with him because, damn it, I was desperate and lonely.

“I really hate you right now,” I insisted.

“Irrelevant.”

My heart sank even further than before.

He didn’t care.

And I’d be stuck with him for as long as some faceless witches said I had to be.

And I used to think my adoptive mother was a pain in the ass.