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I don’t breathe for a moment.You’ve been able to hear me…for years?

I hope I’ve misunderstood.

Unceasingly, the male voice responds.

My mind has been the one place in this entire world where I could find refuge. To know that somewhere out there, this voice, could hear my truest, deepest thoughts?

Just when I’d assumed the situation couldn’t get any worse—I shudder.

Please leave me alone, I beg as I move on to slice cheese and pull apart a thick wedge of bread, ignoring the way my mouth waters.

The voice doesn’t respond, and I think…I think he’s trying to honor my wishes. Not that it stops me from hearing his voice in that other language intermittently throughout the rest of the evening. But I don’t believe he intends to be speaking into my head. It’s almost like my mind is listening in on a nearby conversation someone else is having.

It’s still distracting as sin.

It’s only later, when the moon is high in the sky and Livia has long gone to bed, that I finally return to the vexing issue of his voice.

I sit with my back to the wall of my bedroom, the unfinished veil in my lap and a needle in my hand. I sigh out a breath.

Are you there?I speak into my mind.

I wait for an answer. When none comes, I try again.

Hello? Can you hear me?

Nothing.

Of course the voice would be gone now when I actually want to speak to it—him.

Voice!I say, growing impatient.Are you there?

Gods, you don’t need to yell. And my name isn’t Voice. It’s Memnon.

I have the worrisome urge to laugh—and laugh and laugh.

I have lost it. Truly, I have.

I see you didn’t die, I say instead. I had been holding on to the slight hope that injury or blood loss might’ve taken him sometime between dinnertime and now.

Your disappointment gives me strength, Memnon says.

With his words, I feel a combination of annoyance and humor. The emotions arehis, I realize. I’m not just hearing him speak—I’mfeelingwhat he feels.

I push past my own discomfort at the thought.Are you hurt?

It’s nothing I can’t handle, he says gruffly.

So youarehurt.My pulse quickens.Where?I ask, even as my shoulder continues to throb.

I took an arrow to my back, he says hesitantly,right beneath my shoulder blade.

My breath catches.I can feel it, I admit.

I’m not entirely sure if the emotion rushing through me is mine or this voice’s, but it feels like fingertips touching, like connection.

I swallow, then make another stitch in the veil, the lamp propped on the stool next to me flickering in the darkness.

A part of me is curious aboutwhatthis voice is. Logic is telling me that my mind simply turned on itself, but I badly don’t want to believe that.