Good night, sweetheart," he says. "Good bye, sweetheart," I say. And it's so casual, so innocent that he doesn't suspect a thing.

Vaughn is talking about the heat, and his voice is so excited that it breaks into whispers at times. He loves his madness the way a bird loves the sky.

I want to make a world more magical than my own. I don't care if it makes sense, I don't care if it's ridiculed or if, rather than a neat round planet that goes around forever, it ends with a cliff that falls off into nothing. I want to have my eyes wide open, and I want to see this room and at the same time, not this room.

Hope, that risky, illustrious thing. It should have gone extinct by now, but we keep it alive.

I nod like I'm not at all unnerved by this new cold side to him. Not cruel like his father. Not warm like the husband who sought me out on quiet nights. Something in between. This Linden has never woven his fingers through mine, never chosen me from a line of weary Gathered girls, never said he loved me in a myriad of coloured lights. We are nothing to each other.

She would do anything, anything to belong to his son after a lifetime of belonging to no one at all.

My worries always lead to dungeons; I can't imagine a worse thing than to be imprisoned for the rest of one's life, especially with so few years to enjoy what little there is.