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“Of course,” I said. “We’ll continue this tomorrow morning?”

“Yes,” Warden Hallum answered for his men, all three of whom appeared to have lost the ability – or maybe the will, after today – to speak.

Buck up, boys, I wanted to tell them.If you actually plan on marrying a human woman, then you ain’t seen nothing yet.

22

TENN

“Are you willing to share,” Warden Hallum said to Tasha when we’d returned to his property for the night, “your initial impressions of my men?”

I wanted her to tell him, “No,” because if she was going to share anything with a warden then it was going to be with me. But she was too generous, and too professional in her role here, to be as selfish as I was.

“My initial impressions are positive,” she said. She tilted her head to one side and rubbed the back of her neck.

“What’s wrong with your neck?” I asked. My voice came out low. Rasping. Soft. I’d say it was as soft as her skin, but nothing was as soft as that. “Is it hurting?”

If it was hurting, she was supposed to tell me.

“What?” she dropped her hand. “Oh. No. Not really. It’s just been a long day, that’s all.”

“If you have any notes for my men,” Warden Hallum said, “or any areas for improvement, I will work on it with them.”

I scowled at him. Did he not just hear her talk about her long day? He didn’t need to keep pestering her when she was so obviously tired. But Warden Hallum was not known for hisempathy. He was known for his diligence and his ability to accomplish objectives.

His current objective was, obviously, to acquire human brides for his men.

Perhaps I could not blame him for that. I had the same goal.

But I could blame him for not caring enough about Tasha’s needs. And I planned to.

“I don’t have specific notes at this time,” Tasha said.

It was dark now. The moons and stars splashed silver light down upon her face and her hair. Like even they wanted to touch her, but had to make do with illuminating her from afar instead.

“I just need to spend more time with them,” she went on. “The other men I’ve met so far – like Silar and Fallon – they’re already married. In a way, I’m viewing them through the filtered biases of their wives. Their human wives trust them, so it makes it easier for me to trust them. Even Oaken, who is unmarried, has been living alongside Magnolia for quite a while, now. So I’m inclined to see him as trustworthy, too. But I don’t have that with your men. Or with Zohro,” she added, glancing at me.

“Zohro should be here tomorrow, if all goes well,” I told her.

“That’s good,” she said, tipping her chin down and then bringing it back up. “I look forward to meeting him so I get to know him, too.”

“I understand your hesitations,” Warden Hallum said. “You do not know my men as I do. But you should know that I would not recommend the program proceed if I did not have full confidence in their goodwill towards a future wife.”

“I appreciate that Warden Hallum, thank you. I know Tenn has said something similar.”

“None of my men,” Warden Hallum continued, “have committed a crime as an adult. None of them have enacted any violence against another person in this world.”

Tasha looked so profoundly good, so beatifically kind, when she smiled in response to Warden Hallum’s words.

The very same words that punctured my gut like a venom-coated thorn.

Because one of my men had committed a crime in this world.

A second murder.

And I hadn’t told her.

I’d reasoned with myself, that very first day, that she simply didn’t need to know about what Silar had done.