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others laughed, slowly coming closer. I took one step back, pressing my lips against a whimper. And for the first time, I wished Father was normal, that he wasn’t trying to prove something that couldn’t possibly be true. Something brushed against my hand and I jumped.
    It was a leaf.
    I turned and ran. Their shouts echoed behind me and I ran faster. Some small part of me lamented the loss of the plants I knocked over in my scramble. A door opened somewhere. Someone grabbed me and I slammed against the ridges of a chest. I looked up, but against the blinding light of the sun behind him, his features were as shaded as his dark hair. He lowered his head and searched my eyes. I could see him clearly then, his long nose, the fullness of his lips, the breathtaking shade of his eyes. I had never been so close to anyone in my life. I had never felt as alive as I did in those moments.
    The boys skidded to a halt behind me and the blue-eyed boy looked up.
    “Leave. Or I’ll make sure you're all next at the gallows.”
    He stared, unmoving, until their footsteps receded and the door on the other end clicked shut.
    “Are you alright?” He asked me. There was a hushed quality to his voice that reached inside of me and I couldn’t bear it. I couldn’t bear to be looked at as if I meant something, because I knew I would never see him again.

     
    It was Julian. I meet his eyes, remembering the heat of his chest, the strength of his arms. He leans back against the pillows on the small bed with a soft exhale and it’s a struggle to look at him.
    “I went to the crophouses every day after that. But I never saw you again. I didn’t even know who you were. You ran before I could ask.”
    “You looked for me?” I ask. Father never let me out after he heard what had happened. But I never told him about Julian.
    He shrugs, suddenly shy. “I would have liked to know who I saved.”
    “Those boys knew me.”
    “I rarely go to the market. I rarely leave the Tower. I was... lucky that day.”
    “You? Or me?”
    He holds my gaze. “Me. I was lucky.”
    My cheeks warm and I break away from his gaze. “Do you live in the Tower?”
    “My mother was Chancellor Evan’s sister, so yes, I do. I like it there, I guess,” he says, but his voice faltered at the word was . His mother is dead.
    The door slides open behind me.
    “Lissa,” Slate calls. I turn. His eyes are bloodshot. “We have to go.”
    “Where?” I ask.
    “Trust me,” he says quietly. He drugged me, he killed Father. But he let me live after he saw me in the Chamber. He let Julian live after taking him in.
    Take chances, Father once said. I stand.
    “Lead the way.”
     

 
    I follow Slate back through the hall, which opens to a foyer. Sunlight filters in through the two windows ahead of me, the door to the outside between them. There’s a series of cupboards along one wall and an old seating area pushed against the other. Slate motions for me to sit.
    “But… I thought we were leaving,” I say.
    “First, I-can you please sit down?” He asks. I sit. The color has drained from his face.
    “You need to understand that Gage wasn’t your father,” he says slowly.
    I don’t speak.
    “What he did was wrong and I’ll always hate him for it, even if he was my brother,” he continues. I keep my face carefully neutral. I don’t want to tell him he’s repeating himself.
    “Do you know who my father is?” I ask. I still don’t know if I should trust him, but I can always give him a chance.
    He doesn’t answer right away. He stares at me with an expression I can’t place and it makes my chest tight. He whispers something, his voice so soft, I’m not even sure he spoke until the words register in my mind.
    “Me. I’m your father.”
    My mouth opens, but shock has stolen my voice. All I can muster is a dying wheeze.
    How many times had I looked at Father and wondered why we were so different? How many times did I repeat his last words and wonder if they are