“Secrets?” “No, better. Stories. There’s freedom in stories, you know. We read them and we become something else. We imagine different lives, and while we turn the pages, we get to live them. To escape the lot we’ve been given.” Florian picked up a book and idly flipped through its pages. “My life is fine,” he said. “I’m sure yours is. You live on the open sea! You have the kind of life I read about in my books.” Evelyn took the book back from him and flipped to a page where a drawing showed a soldier, his hands to his belly, which bled from a mortal wound. “We don’t just read to imagine
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