Cassius was shocked. “Eli told you it was him at your Proem?”

“No,” Kit managed to croak out. “That was the problem. We’d just had a discussion in which he had divulged information I’d been seeking for years, answered questions I’d asked more times than I can count, and even told me a few things I would’ve never dreamt of asking. But he didn’t tell me that.”

She could see confusion written in the crinkles of his forehead. “So how do you know?”

Kit dropped her eyes to a distant spot in the bathwater. “We were... that is... he was about to... enter me.” She glanced up, relieved that he...