But Tara knows all this. She must know because she’s seen Axel in the trading cards. She must know because she knows about Yggdrasil.
How much does she know?
She blinks awake, leans across me. Her hair is a soft cloud of fire against my chest. “You’re upset,” she says. “I can feel your tension.”
I want to tell her that it’s nothing, to go back to sleep. Immediately, I feel remorse fist-solid in my solar plexus. I’m the embodiment of n’aashet n’aaverti, passionate loyalty. I can’t lie to her, not ever.
But to ask a question isn’t a lie, only a distraction from my failure to reply. “When…when did you find out about Yggdrasil?”
“When I found out, I was with Clive,” she says. “I wasn’t happy. It was really galling to share that moment with him, to find out that you’d deceived me again. He’s one of the last people I want to look like a fool in front of.”
After all my reading, I understand my earlier aversion to him. “He used to be your lover.”
“Don’t remind me. It was a mistake.”
“Then why is he here? Why did you bring him here?”
“That was Lord Danak’s idea. As it turned out, it wasn’t such a bad one. He’d had his eye on that terrorist girl for quite some time.”
“He said something of the sort – that he could recognize his own kind.”
“He would say that, wouldn’t he?” Tara is smirking. I can’t tell if it’s because she’s mocking Rivers, or secretly proud of him.
I thumb through the deck of trading cards until I find Axel. “It’s grey,” I note. I place it next to my own. It looks pallid, lifeless. By contrast, my card is glowing a pale rose. The colors have gained in vibrancy.
“I haven’t had much time to spend with him, unfortunately,” says Tara. “That’s too bad. The first time I met him, I told him I’d like to do him in a closet.”