“There’s something else,” I add.
That gets his attention. His gaze lifts, sharpening instantly. “What?”
I hesitate. This shouldn’t feel difficult. It isn’t a confession. It isn’t an accusation. And yet.
“I spoke to Ron.”
There is the faintest shift in his posture.
“When?” he asks.
“After you were shot.”
A pause. “Without my knowledge.”
“Yes.”
His jaw tightens, but not in anger. In consideration. “And what did my little brother decide to tell you?”
I lean back against the edge of the table, folding my arms loosely. “That you’re insufferable when you’re trying to protect someone.”
That almost earns a reaction. Almost.
“He said,” I continue more quietly, “that you’ve never let anyone close enough to matter since… before.”
Sabrina goes unspoken, but it settles between us anyway. Zeidan looks away first.
“He had no right?—”
“He had every right,” I interrupt gently. “He was worried about you.”
Silence fills the archives, thick but not hostile. The dust in the air drifts lazily through a shaft of light between us.
“He said something else,” I add.
Zeidan’s eyes return to mine, wary now.
“He said you’re different with me.”
A faint crease appears between his brows. “Different how?”
“Alive,” I say simply.
That lands harder than anything else. He exhales through his nose, almost a quiet scoff. “Ron romanticizes things he does not understand.”
“No,” I say softly. “He understands you better than anyone.”
That makes him go still.
“He trusts me,” I continue. “He told me that outright. Said if I ever hurt you, he’d have words. But he trusts me.”
There’s something almost boyish in the way Zeidan absorbs that. A flicker of surprise. Of uncertainty.
“I swear I didn't fight him with pillows enough when we were younger,” Zeidan mutters.
I burst out laughing. The sound echoes faintly off the stone shelves, scandalously bright for a room that has likely not heard laughter in decades.
“I cannot,” I say between breaths, “imagine you in a pillow fight.”