Masquerade [Kuskovo Estate]

[Raffe]

Raffe blinked when Kristian’s hand reached out. He’d worked plenty of places where you had to keep an eye out for that sort of thing, but it took him by surprise in the middle of a ballroom. He didn’t move away, but he suddenly felt like a bug behind glass. The man said something about auras; the words washed over him, but for now at least all he felt was punctured by the attention. He’d come here for Noémi, but in that moment all he wanted to do was turn around and walk away from it all. Kristian poked at an open wound, and it only reminded him how numb his reactions were. The affability of his expression slipped, the smile vanished. He felt hollow inside. A cry for help, Kristian called it. But it wasn’t. Raffe wanted no help.

“It wasn’t ripped,” he said. The men had continued talking around him, like the doctors at Paragon. He didn’t listen to what they said, understanding that this was well-meaning, yet in the glitz of a world where the Ascendancy himself was a casually invited guest – a world aeons away from the one Raffe had always inhabited – it felt like rich men’s idle amusement. “He took it when he left. A broken heart is my affliction, and there’s no help for that.” His gaze had drifted, not with the haze of bad memory, but like the settle of sediment. He owed no explanation to strangers, and while he offered it anyway, it was with disconnect. If there was a plea, it was to let the matter drop, rather than be used for pitiful sport.