“You’re the one who hasn’t understood, Mom. Thorn isn’t the egotistical monster you think he is . . . that I once thought he was, too,” she had to admit. “I convinced myself that he wanted to read Mr. Farouk’s Book out of personal ambition, but it’s something else, there always was something else. Thorn has just given it up to protect us, we can’t let him down now.”
