Chapter 50. How to Embarrass a Circle

Orla woke me with a piece of bread and a lie.

“It’s morning,” she said, even though the window still wore indigo and the lamps along the cliffline shivered like sleepy fireflies. She shoved the loaf at my chest. “Eat. Humility tastes better on a full stomach.”

Leaf sat on my ankle like a paperweight, tail thumping once in approval of the bread. In the other room, Kael breathed the slow, even rhythm of a man pretending he’d been asleep all night. His bandaged hand lay open on the blanket, palm up—as if even when he rested he offered something.

Orla caught me looking. “Bring him the end piece,” she said. “He’ll lie and say he doesn’t like it. It’s the best part.”

Tiny tune-up: people who say they don’t want the end pieces are either saints or liars. There aren’t as many saints as the saints think.

We ate with our fingers. I brought Kael his heel. He blinked up at me, hair smashed flat in one direction that made him look younger in a way that felt unfair.<