"I know about my mother's favor to you and Art, you're like me.. you didn't find a place in this world just because you were different from them."

He opened his mouth and then closed it again, not knowing what to say, not knowing what was going on in her mind.

She tilted her head at an angle close to his breath.

“We are the same, different from them, Kanai.. I can see that darkness behind your bones.”

Her hand passed from behind his jaw to where the bones of his rib cage rest there in comfort, as if by this she was monopolizing her authority over his pulse and...