And I said things. Things I never should have said. You fascinate me too. I couldn’t get you out of my thoughts. That’s why I came. You’re beautiful, Raine. I don’t know where it all came from. The words rushed out. For a few minutes every bit of restraint I had vanished. She made it vanish. And right now, the one thing I need more than ever is restraint.

I can’t lose sight of the goal. I’m going to find Karden, no matter what—dead or alive—for Miesha and for everyone else too. Five years from now, if Security shows up in Xavier’s neighborhood, they’ll be begging on their knees for help, not demanding it, and I won’t be hiding in the shadows with a shawl thrown over my head.

Xavier is on his way over, ignoring Carver’s rule of no contact. He found out I was out again last night. He’s not happy. When he arrives, he rings the bell and is wearing a delivery uniform, a cap pulled down over his eyes. He walks in with two bags of groceries.

“Nice disguise,” I say, trying to lighten his mood. I even add the little lighthearted smirk that always defused Gatsbro’s concerns. It doesn’t work with Xavier. He slams the door and dumps the grocery bags on the living room floor.

“What were you doing in the Commons last night? Someone on the way home from the docks saw you across the street from Raine’s apartment. We have a plan in case you forgot! Who do—”

“The plan was for me to get in with Raine and her friends, in case you forgot,” I snap back at him, and then in a lower voice, I add, “I’ve gotten to know her.”

“You what?”

“She likes to go out at night.”

He stares at me, his jaw tight, his scar white against his reddening face. “How many nights has this happened?”

I pick the bags up from the floor. “Almost every night, if it’s any of your business.” A stupid thing to say. Of course it’s his business. Everything to do with the Favor is his business.

He looks at me for the longest time. His jaw goes lax. “No. No.” He shakes his head and turns. “Noooo.” He groans. “I can’t believe it.” He spins around to face me. “My God, you’ve fallen for her.”

I nearly drop the bags again. “That’s the jump of an insane man.”

“Look at you. It’s all over your face.”

“So now you read faces?” I turn and walk to the kitchen with the bags. “The only thing on my face is lack of sleep because I’m doing what you told me to do. I can’t just walk into this thing without—”

“Have you kissed her?”

I stop and turn back to face him. “What?” But I can tell I’ve already given it away. All I can do now is damage control. I force my shoulders to relax and I shrug. “So what if I have? It doesn’t mean anything.”

“Nothing? You sure?”

Am I? I haven’t been able to stop thinking about her for days. Not just the kiss, but even before that. Every time I try to focus on other things, I still circle back to her. But how could I fall for Raine when I still love Jenna? I’ve always loved Jenna. Thoughts of her are what got me through centuries of being trapped in a six-inch cube.

Locke, it just isn’t right.… I may look like the Jenna you knew so long ago, but I’m lifetimes from that girl. I’m two hundred and seventy-seven years old now.… You deserve the chance to live a life.…

Xavier waits for a reply. I turn away and unload the groceries on the counter. “There’s someone else in my life,” I answer.

“Good. It wouldn’t be smart for you to get mixed up with Raine that way. She can’t be trusted. She is the Secretary’s daughter.”

I whip around at the remark, ready to defend her. “She’s not like the Secretary. She’s adopted. Did you know that?”

“But he raised her. That’s enough to make her dangerous.”

He doesn’t miss a beat with his reply, which is more than a little odd. He’s not surprised with this new information about her adoption. Maybe because it’s not new to him. Why didn’t he include it in Raine’s files? If telling me that she likes fencing is important, it seems like this little fact might be important too.

“You look like hell,” he says. “You better get some sleep, Romeo. You have the performance of a lifetime tonight, and the Secretary’s going to be a much tougher audience than Raine to fool.”

I note how smoothly he changes the subject. He’s covering, trying to erase the ground he just gave me. I grab an orange from the groceries he brought and score the peel with the blade of my Swiss knife the way my dad used to. I sit at the kitchen table and plop my feet on top of it, lean back in the chair, and pull the neatly scored peel from the orange. Sometimes more can be said with silence than with words. I learned that from Miesha. Raine’s incomplete files weren’t just sloppiness. I wipe the oily orange residue from the blade with my fingers and fold it back into its red hilt, pulling out the scissors next, and then the tweezers.

“Why the sudden interest in the knife?” Xavier asks.

“Just paying attention to details.”

“Did you hear anything I said about getting some sleep?”

I look at his face, staring at every angle, every plane. He knows exactly what I’m doing. He wants to turn away, but he doesn’t. I have to give him that. I see anger. I see fear. But mostly I see a mountain of guilt.

And that’s when I know.