Speaking to it?

The question followed me like a dare, soft and incredulous, and I almost laughed out loud—right there in the dark of my room where the window threw a pale strip of moon across the floorboards.

Darius had said it as if it were obvious, like noticing when a candle went out. Speaking to it. Speaking to someone in my head.

Of course he would suspect.

My first impulse was to tell him to mind his own prophecy-haunted business. My second was to consider, for a heartbeat too long, whether I should tell him the truth.

I snorted at myself in the next second. Why would I ever...