I felt her stare before I even opened my eyes. I knew it was her without even looking, because my entire body became warm, and my nerves began to tingle. When I gestured for her to join me, her mouth fell open slightly. It was a delightful vision.

“I didn't mean to disturb you,” she said uncertainly. “Sorry.”

“You have not disturbed me. I have been awake for hours.” I patted the bed again and jerked my head a bit. “Sit.”

She hesitated, but then she began to make her way across the room to me. When she reached the bed, she eased herself down gingerly. It did not go unnoticed by me that she avoided making contact. Nevertheless, to have her in such close proximity was electric. The hairs on the back of my neck stood, and I crossed my arms over my chest to avoid reaching for her.

She did not say anything for a long while, nor did I. I wanted her to be the one to initiate conversation. It was evident she was growing uncomfortable with the silence from the way her mouth continuously opened and closed as if she was about to speak before deciding against it. Finally, she broke through the quiet.

“Why are you sitting out here alone?”

“Would it be different if I were to sit in my room alone?” I challenged.

Phoebe tipped her head to the side, considering my question. “I guess not,” she said. “I'd just think you'd be more comfortable in your room.”

“My room is small. I prefer open spaces.” It was perhaps the greatest challenge I had encountered since being here. I was accustomed to having the whole of the desert at my disposal, and being confined indoors was practically intolerable for me.

“Why are you here?” she asked.

I crooked a brow at her and inquired, “Was my explanation of open spaces not enough?”

“That's not what I mean,” she said quickly. “I mean, why are you part of this team?”

Had anyone else asked me that question, I would have had a snarky reply prepared. Coming from her, however, I answered genuinely. “I have wondered the same thing,” I admitted. “Unfortunately, I will not know the answer to that until the Council arrives.”

She nodded in understanding, but I knew she actually didn't understand at all. How could she, when even I was unable to understand? She shifted on the mattress, and for a moment I thought she was going to leave. Then, she turned her face to me but kept her eyes averted.

“I wanted to talk to you,” she said timidly.

I waited, expecting her to go into further detail, but she did not. She merely sat there with her hands twisted in her lap and her eyes fixed firmly on the blankets beneath her. I felt a strong desire to brush a lock of hair from her face and urge her to explain, but I restrained myself. Instead, I closed my eyes and asked, “About what?”

“About Kharid.”

My heart paused in my chest. A sickly knot fell into the depths of my belly, making me feel both ill and extremely heavy at the same time. I had put my Elder’s death out of my mind. I had thought about Venan, of course, but I had managed to distance thoughts of him from memories of Kharid’s killing. Focusing solely on Venan and his immediate predicament was like a protection for me against the emotions I did not want to feel and, whatever reason the Council had for choosing me to be a part of this team dedicated to eradicating the mysterious Novai disease, I would still keep my sights set on freeing and exonerating my brother. Hearing Kharid’s name now, from Phoebe’s lips, no less, sent a jolt of unwelcome pain through me that distracted the purpose I had set for myself and instead invited raw, purposeless grief.

“I trust you are perceptive enough to realize nothing can be done for him now,” I said through gritted teeth. I did not intend to be rude, but I wanted to quash any misconceptions she might have had about my willingness to discuss the events of that dreadful day.

“No, I know,” she replied. I heard a note of sadness in her voice, layered beneath regret. I looked at her and was startled to see a measure of pain in her emerald eyes. “I just—I thought—” She shook her head, ungroomed waves of blonde sweeping across her round cheeks. “You were there with me, on the floor, trying to save him. And he was your Elder.”

“You are a colonist of the kingdom of Dhal’at,” I said. “He was your Elder too.”

She nodded, though it was evident by the slight pucker on her mouth that truth had not occurred to her before. “Yeah, I guess he was,” she agreed.

I did not respond. There was nothing to say, and I did not want to encourage this topic of conversation. I closed my eyes once more and leaned my head back against my wrists, attempting to think of anything but Kharid. To my dismay, though, she was not done trying to wrangle me.

“I just thought we should talk about it,” she told me ruefully. “It’s been bothering me.”

“It is a waste of energy to be bothered by that which we cannot change,” I remarked without looking at her or moving from my lounging position.

There was a beat of silence, and I was curious enough to finally reopen my eyes. She was staring at me, her orbs boring into me like needles, prying into the deepest parts of my mind. It was as if I could feel her rooting through my brain, searching for something I did not know, and I wanted to shake her loose. If I could have, I would have reached into my head and pulled her out. That was the one place I never allowed anyone to go.

“You hate me, don’t you?” she whispered.

Her words stunned me into speechlessness, a rare feat. I was unable to answer her, to turn away from her delving gaze, to even shake my head in response. Nothing. I was frozen beneath her stare, and she was looking at me with such horror and heartache that I felt it beginning to manifest within myself.

“You hate me because I didn’t save him.”

“Of course I do not hate you,” I forced myself to say. My reply sounded strange because my tongue tripped over the syllables, but I needed to get that terrible expression off her face at once. “You did what you could. As you said, I was there with you, and I was not able to save him either. If I were to hate you for his death, I would have to hate myself equally.”

She blinked, and a droplet of moisture rolled from the inner corner of her eye to the apple of her cheek, down, down, down until it reached her jaw and dangled over her collarbone. “Don’t you?” she asked. “Don’t you hate yourself for letting him die?”

Never before had I been asked such an introspective question. It unnerved me. Perhaps I did hate myself for letting him die, but, if so, I was careful to bury those feelings away where I would never happen upon them again, and I certainly was not going to bring them to the surface to appease this human’s pain, beautiful or not.

“No,” was my flippant reply. “I believe you have me confused with my brother.”

Phoebe’s mouth became a perfect circle. “So, that A’li-uud was your brother,” she breathed. It sounded as if she was talking more to herself than to me.

“Yes. My twin.”

“How is he handling everything?” The second she asked the question, she clapped her hand over her mouth and her eyes widened to saucers. “Oh, god, I’m so sorry. That was so stupid of me to ask. Of course, he must be struggling.”

Yet again, I realized this human was likely the most compassionate being in existence. “You need not apologize. It is kind of you to inquire about him. But I can only give you my estimation, as he was being removed from Dhal’at as I was being brought here.”

She wrinkled her brow, forming two disapproving ridges over her eyes, and exclaimed, “They didn’t take him away for what happened to Kharid, did they?”

“Yes,” I confirmed. I lowered my arms from behind my head and straightened up to press my back flush against the wall. “He will stand trial for Kharid’s death. Until then, he is imprisoned at P’otes-tat Ulti.”

“Where?” she asked blankly.

“It is the Elder City,” I explained. “P’otes-tat Ulti is where the Council holds forums and trials.”

She shook her head, once again sending her tresses flying about her face. “Why did they take him? It was an accident! I saw it, you saw it, all the nurses saw it—they can’t possibly think it was intentional.”

“It matters not whether it was intentional for the moment.” The memory of Venan, his numb demeanor and his easy submission to the guards, lit a flame in my gut, and I surged with fresh anger. “Until a decision is made in or against his favor, Venan is considered a threat to society and has thus been removed.”

Phoebe covered her face with her hands, her small fingers pressing into her eyelids. For some reason, I felt soothed by her disbelief. I felt as if I was not alone in this dreadful time, and I instantly understood why she had sought to speak with me about everything that had transpired. There was consolation in sympathy.

Suddenly, she raised her head and stared at me with dawning insight. “Maybe that’s why you’re here,” she uttered. “To keep you out of society, too. To keep an eye on you.”

Everything I had been feeling, or trying not to feel, came to a head at that very moment. I was riddled with rage, sorrow, rebellion, angst, as Phoebe’s theory spun itself into a blur in my mind. The Council had removed me from Ka-lik’et, from Dhal’atian society, either because they felt I too was a danger or because they thought I would fall back into my stealthy, slippery past and free Venan from his wrongful imprisonment.

I hoped, for the Elders’ sake, Phoebe was wrong, because if I discovered they had indeed placed me here in unofficial confinement, I would quickly become the very thing they feared.