Love didn’t come into this, and we both knew it. Arcturus Mesarthim was of the veil, not the world, and I was a daughter of the streets. If the Ranthen discovered anything between us, the fragile alliance we’d forged would be broken. But I could feel his warm, solid presence from here—the beating of his spirit, the tantalizing dark arc of his dreamscape, a flame wrapped up in smoke—and I realized that none of those things would change my mind. I still wanted him with me, just as I had before climbing aboard that train to my freedom.
