Chapter 34
34
MY FIANCéE.
If I weren’t already standing flat on my bare feet, those two ridiculous, incorrect, outrageous words would have sent me to the elevator floor.
As it is, the world still seems to turn sideways. It takes every bit of the stability training and core strength I’ve earned from sparring with the twins to maintain my footing. Blood rushes in my ears. My vision tunnels to just the few feet ahead of me, the rest of the world muted and gray. Bianca is speaking, but I can’t hear her. She is nodding politely, but I can’t register what she could possibly be polite about.
Why and how could anyone ever look at me and this… this smiling, charming thief who knows too much, and believe we’re getting married ?
How dare he? My fiancée ?
My head swivels to the thief, tunnel vision narrowing solely to Benedict’s mild expression as he responds to Bianca’s questions about—who even knows? I blink hard, like he might suddenly laugh at his silly, unbelievable joke, but he seems wholly unaffected as he takes his—our—invitation back from Bianca when she extends her hand to return the envelope.
I’m already having trouble reconciling the fact that this affable, relaxed Benedict is the same person I punched less than fifteen minutes ago. The same opponent who unraveled my constructs, countering my magic so smoothly that our fight had felt… easy. Intimate, even. Like dancing.
How is this amiable rich boy the same stranger who apologized to me before kissing me senseless—and the same stranger who I kissed back? This thief who knows my name is Bree but just called me Iris ?
For a split second, I wonder if he’s completely lost his mind—or if I have. Then, I see the slightest, barest twinkle in the deepest recesses of his blue eyes, and my vision snaps back into clarity. I narrow my own, chasing that twinkle down until I can capture it. Clasp it in both hands. Squeeze the truth out of it.
Suddenly, out of the cloud of my own confusion, I understand.
He’s playing her. And he’s roped me into whatever his scheme is, making my own fake identity more complicated—and far less likely to be believed. He could end up blowing my and Zoe’s covers just to ensure his own. Not only is he playing Bianca, but he expects me to play along with him.
Screw. This. Guy .
“What did you just say?” The words erupt out of me before I can stop them.
Bianca and Benedict both look at me. While she blinks in surprise at my sudden outburst, Benedict’s face grows still beneath his mask.
“You okay, honey?” When he speaks again, his voice is low and soft, like he’s wrapped his deep voice in a thick, calming blanket. Exactly how one might speak to a rabid animal in the forest, soothing them before they attack. “I was just asking our host here why these alarms were set off.”
Well, I won’t be soothed.
“So very many alarms are going off, Benedict,” I reply between clenched teeth. “It makes it hard to pinpoint exactly what’s going on, doesn’t it?”
“For sure,” he says. “Everything’s super confusing.”
Benedict’s eyes remain fixed on mine—and abruptly, I feel like we are back in the basement, fighting under angry red security lights. Masks on. Gloves off. My attack, his parry.
“Unexpected and entirely frustrating,” I riposte haughtily—and watch with satisfaction as his eyelids flutter. “Not at all what I thought I’d experience tonight.”
“I apologize for the confusion.” Bianca interrupts us sheepishly, but neither one of us looks at her. “We’ve been holding these events annually for a decade now without incident, so we are, unfortunately, a bit unprepared. There was a security breach—outside the house, not inside. But it’s over now. Someone tried to break a”—she pauses for just a beat before finishing her sentence—“a barrier.”
When both Benedict and I turn to Bianca as one, something tells me he heard what she didn’t say as clearly as I did: Someone tried to breach a ward.
Benedict responds first, his rich-boy mask firmly back in place. “Somebody tried to break into this place?” His eyes widen, and his jaw loosens in affected surprise. “Holy shit, you serious?”
Bianca eyes him. “Deadly serious, I’m afraid. We need every guest to go back to the ballroom for an announcement.” Her eyes drop to my shoes on the floor. She gives them and my bare feet a pointed look. “If you don’t mind…”
“Yeah, yeah, of course. Give us a second?” Benedict gestures down at my heels, still on the carpeted floor where he’d tossed them. “Let me give my lady back her shoes first?”
Bianca must decide we’re young and harmless, because she turns her attention to the increasingly loud crowd at the door while she speaks to us. “Take the back staircase up to the ballroom and your table. The elevator is closed for the evening.”
“Sure, no problem,” Benedict replies while he bends down to retrieve my shoes.
Bianca gestures to the tall warlock with the buzzcut as she passes. “Santiago, you’re with me.” The warlock guard Bianca left behind, Lawson, stands a few feet away from the elevator, politely turned away as Benedict kneels at my feet.
Benedict clears his throat to get my attention, holding one heel up in the air. I roll my eyes and, without thinking, grasp his shoulder for balance—startling us both with the contact. The firm muscle beneath my hand tightens, and I freeze in place. Then he’s moving again, slipping the heel in his hand onto my foot while I balance on his shoulder as if nothing has happened at all. With the first heel in place, Benedict glances up at me, blue eyes that were slightly hazy and possibly drunk suddenly sharp and cautious—before he turns away to address my other shoe.
I already know this guy’s real name isn’t Benedict. But this rich, clueless, sort of bro-ish boy act is definitely not the same personality that nearly cracked my jaw in half down in the basement. So who is he?
I rub my jaw where it’s tender and hope that it’s only turning brownish red instead of an angry purple I might have to hide with foundation in a bathroom. I almost feel bad when I see the hint of a wince as Benedict shifts his balance; beneath his pant leg, his thigh is probably bruising nicely from my fist.
Then I remember that when he kissed me, he’d held the unbruised side of my face.
This has gone so wrong.
Zoe and I need to abort this mission. The whole night is a bust.
I eye the warlock again and try to assess how much of a fight he might put up if I attempt to evade him, get back to my table and to Zoe, and get the hell out of this place. The faster we leave, the better.
When Benedict is done with my second shoe, he sets my foot down and stands in a single smooth movement. That smile is back again—the charming, easy one that spreads slow across his face. A smile so languid, you want to follow its growth, maybe watch to see if it reaches his eyes, too. I already know that smile—and I know it’s fake.
“All done.” He raises his arm like a perfect gentleman. “Ready?”
“Sure, Benedict,” I say tightly, and take his arm as we exit the elevator.
When his hand slips to rest gently across my lower back, I jump at that contact too, just like he did when I grabbed his shoulder for balance in the elevator. Benedict’s hand stills immediately, and we both keep moving, but the warlock frowns at the two of us as we pass.
When I relax my shoulders, Benedict’s hand moves again, this time up my back instead of down. It doesn’t help. The sensation of his warm palm spreading wide across the bare skin between my dress straps has me fighting back a gasp. His hand is massive. This touch disorients me in a new way, and now I’m dizzy and confused and, suddenly, much too flustered.
“Everything okay, honey?” he murmurs.
Right. We’re… engaged. And Lawson the warlock is still watching. “Just fine,” I mutter, relaxing back into his palm as best I can.
Benedict presses his lips together in another fake, fuzzy smile and navigates us down the hall toward one set of spiral staircases to the ballroom. As we move closer to the empty stairs, the voices behind us grow quieter. As soon as we’re out of sight of the warlock, Benedict drops his hand from my back. I’m not as steady on my borrowed heels up the stairs, and he slows his pace to match mine. The full, warm yellow glow from the sconces along the staircase finally give me a moment to take in my new companion from head to toe.
I could tell he was tall in the basement, but here in the light? Six foot three or four at least, if I were to guess. His black tuxedo jacket fits his broad shoulders and straight posture perfectly. Tailored, for sure. Still, the curves of his biceps strain the material of his sleeves in a way that might make someone’s gaze linger. Not my gaze, per se. But someone’s. Or, honestly, everyone’s .
Good Lord.
His torso and legs are both long, and the open hand now hanging loosely at his side is as wide as I imagined, with long fingers and neat nails. I remember the feeling of his palm’s rough, warm calluses on my cheek—and on my thigh. Above his mask, his hair is thick and blond, and below it, his jaw is so sharply angled and strong, it could be its own kind of weapon. This time, my gaze does linger, until he turns to me halfway up the stairs, and I wrench my eyes away.
“Wait.” He pauses, indicating that I should do the same. We are in the middle of the staircase, standing by a window, and for the moment, we’re alone and out of sight.
“What?”
He checks up and down the stairs again to make sure no one is coming before speaking. “I haven’t seen you in months,” he says in a low voice. “None of us have.”
None of us . I feel the press of unknown faces and names and incomplete memories inside my skull, filling up the space of my mind with everything Erebus has taken. “Who is ‘us’?”
“The Legendborn, your friends”—he pauses—“but also your enemies.”
“And which one of those are you?” I whisper. “You attacked me, after all.”
“ Pretty sure that fight was mutual and, as it happens, more fun than I’ve had in months.” He grins. “Wanna go again?”
“You…,” I sputter. “You—”
“I… what?” he prompts, eyes dancing. “Do tell.”
“You… deforged my magic!” I don’t even know if that’s the right word.
He blinks. “Is that a word?”
“What else do you call it when someone disassembles your constructs down to dust with a wave of their hand?” I hiss.
Something deepens in the blue of his irises, and for a split second, I swear I see his pupils turn blue too, but the change is gone as soon as it comes. He sidesteps my question, his face serious once more. He moves closer, backing me up against the window. “I knew you were alive—we all knew you were alive—but we had no idea where you were, and then you just show up here? How? And why? And your memory—” He stops when a pair of voices grows closer to us from the bottom of the staircase. We hold our breaths. Wait. And then the speakers move away. “There’s really no time for this. Not here.”
“No time for what?” I cross my arms. “For you to interrogate someone you’ve just met?”
“You know we haven’t ‘just met.’?”
I’m annoyed that he’s right. “Maybe I do. Maybe I don’t.” I lift my chin. “You don’t know what I know.”
“You’re right. So why don’t you tell me?” he asks. “How much have you lost?”
I blink at him, stunned at both the simplicity of his question and the pain it brings. This boy, his eyes, his questions… He is a dagger to my heart, quick and true. So much so that I’m not prepared for my own honest answer, pulled from my chest in a hoarse rasp. “Everyone.”
He holds my gaze with something like sadness—followed by swift resignation. “But you’re still you, right? Your personality is the same? Your abilities?”
“Like?” I prompt.
“Can you still resist mesmer?” I don’t answer, but my face must betray me, because he nods. “You can. Good. Which means whatever took this part of you away wasn’t a mesmer.”
I swallow but don’t answer. Just the fact that he knows I can resist mesmer puts this masked boy in a very limited circle of possible people in my life. He is Legendborn, more likely than not. Erebus claimed that if I saw the Legendborn, my friends, and my family again, they’d be so hurt that I didn’t remember them that they’d reject me. That they’d punish me for my choice to leave and that my relationships would be fractured forever. To me, I’ve lost knowledge. To them, I’ve lost memories. But Benedict doesn’t seem to be angry with me. In fact, he seems to want to know more, to understand more . I can see the gears turning in his head and find myself curious about what he’ll say next.
“What else do you think you know?” I ask.
He studies me. “Well, you don’t appear to be surprised by whatever’s affecting you. You’re not shocked that you don’t recognize me, which means that not only has something happened to your mind, but you already know that thing has happened—and you’ve known for a while.” He frowns. “This is a hunch, but I don’t think you know exactly what caused these knowledge gaps, do you?”
I lift a shoulder. “I know… enough.”
“It’s magical,” he says quietly. “Isn’t it?”
I wrap my arms around myself.
He leans closer. Another question. “Did someone do this to you?”
My fists ball tight, the answer pulled from my lips before I can stop it. “Yes.”
His eyes flash, anger quick and bright. “And you can’t reverse it.” Not a question.
“How do you know I can’t—”
“Because the girl I know would be fighting like hell to undo what someone else did to her against her consent,” he says, voice low and serious. “And if you’re not actively fighting it, what’s happened has either taken that fight out of you, along with your knowledge of the people in your life or…”
I look up at him, heart pounding with the surety of his gaze, the confidence in what he knows—and the unnerving thrill of listening to him capture this part of me so quickly. “Or what?”
He tilts his head, the anger in his face fading. “Or you’ve decided that whatever this person has done to you has helped you gain more than you’ve lost.”
Now that I’ve been captured, I find I don’t want to be. I look away. “You can stop talking now. You don’t know everything about me, Benedict .”
A pause. Then his voice comes again, amused. “I know that you’ve most definitely already guessed that my name is not Benedict Pierce.”
“Anyone could figure that out.” I wave a hand and look at him pointedly. “You don’t even look like a Benedict.”
His mouth twitches, brows lifting. “Thank you?”
“You’re welcome,” I reply primly.
He holds my gaze and I hold his, and then I’m feeling warm and confused again. And, what’s worse, it feels like he can tell . I shake my head to snap out of it. Change the subject. “Earlier tonight, what were you trying to… acquire ?”
The only visible response to my question is a slight tightening of the skin around his eyes—smoothed out in a blink. He turns to walk up the stairs, gesturing for me to come along. “I could ask the same of you, Bree.”
The sound of my name in his voice again makes me nearly miss a step. I lose balance on my heels and—in a flash of speed—his hand meets my spine, steadying me.
He’d traveled down two stairs without my noticing. “You’re fast.”
“I know.” His eyes soften. “And… I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“For saying something snarky that made you trip just now, and touching you like this, and for… before. Hitting you like that—”
“I think I got you in the leg pretty bad,” I say.
“You did. You’re… a lot stronger than I am.” Then his cheeks tinge pink. “But I’m also sorry about the elevator. Kissing you.”
I blink, taken aback. “It was…”
“A distraction. One that just happened to work on Bianca.” He shakes his head once and straightens. While I regain my balance, he removes his hand from my back to stuff it in his pocket, then continues up the stairs. “A last-minute play to avoid a situation that neither of us planned for. It won’t happen again.”
“Oh.” I stifle the surprising surge of rebellion that rises in my chest. I don’t know him. He shouldn’t be kissing me. I shouldn’t want him to kiss me. “That’s fine. I’m leaving as soon as they let us go, anyway.”
“Leaving? But—” He looks at me sharply. Opens his mouth, then closes it. “That’s probably for the best. It’s not safe here, for more reasons than one. You should get out at the first opportunity.”
Indignation makes me ball my fists all over again. I glare up at him. “You can’t tell me what to do.”
He blinks down at me. “You’ve said that to me before.”
“I have?” Then I recover, lifting my chin. “Well, you clearly didn’t listen the first time.”
“I didn’t.” His gaze turns almost… admiring. “You don’t remember who I am, but you’re still just as stubborn as you’ve always been. Just as dauntless.”
My body grows warm. “Thank you?”
He grins. “You’re welcome.”
Parry. Riposte. Like a call and a response.
We stare at each other in the middle of Mikael’s back staircase, and for a moment, I am caught by his eyes, his brow, his generous, curved mouth. Zoe and I need the crown to stop Erebus from hunting Rootcrafters, but… is this boy a reason to stick around? Or another reason to leave as soon as possible? What if asking more questions fills in the blanks of my mind somehow? I want to know how not-Benedict and I know each other and why he makes me feel the way I do, but I can’t shake the feeling that to know more is to risk more. What if Erebus finds out I’ve run into someone from my past and makes good on the threats against people I’ve come to care about, like Zoe and Elijah? Or decides to hurt the people I used to know and care about, like my father, or the girl in a coma… or this handsome boy who calls me “dauntless” in a low voice that makes me shiver?
I came here ready to be impervious, and this boy—this tall, warm, knowing boy—is already testing that goal.
I tell myself I can ask one question, at least. Just one. “ How do you know me?”
“It’s a very long story and while we’re here, it’s too dangerous a story to tell.” His jaw tightens as he turns again to walk up the stairs. I join him for one step. Two. A third. We’re almost at the top of the staircase, in full view of everyone in the hallway outside of the ballroom. The voices above are growing louder, more agitated. “Are you safe? Wherever you’ve been?”
“I can’t be harmed—physically, anyway,” I murmur. Then, after a moment’s hesitation and considering Erebus’s animal constructs and sparring with the twins, I add, “Much.”
He turns to me as he walks. “You do realize that’s not at all reassuring?”
“It’s better than the alternative,” I say defiantly. “I am where I chose to be.”
“Where you chose to be —?” He whirls back on me one step from the top. Looks as if he might press harder on that point but then decides better. In a voice that can barely qualify as a whisper, he asks, “Are you with the demon who took you from Northern?”
I don’t answer that. “I don’t even know your real name.”
He releases his name with a strange, sad smile. “Nick.”
“Nick,” I repeat. “Short for Nicholas?”
When I say his whole name, a current seems to zip through him. A quiet shiver, before he closes his eyes and crests the top of the stairs to walk ahead. “Yeah.”
It seems I’m not the only one who has an involuntary response to my name from the other party’s mouth.
I may not know Nick, but the feelings he evokes, the sensations against my skin—those feel familiar. Feel real. Instead, I worry at my lower lip. How can you miss something that feels like it was never really there? I’m starting to understand how, because the idea of leaving Nick tonight makes something in my chest burn.
I want more—like I did when he kissed me—and can’t tell if I should. If it’s a good idea to chase more of these old feelings when I don’t even know how he created them in the first place.
As I finally crest the staircase myself, I find Nick looking out over the black-and-white-checkered floor outside the ballroom doors. There is a crowd of people hovering outside in their gowns and tuxedos, some gathered in frantic clusters. Two security warlocks stand at the top of the curving grand staircase that leads down to the foyer, turning away anyone who approaches. I wonder how long they’ll be able to contain this throng of powerful people without some sort of uprising.
I come to a stop beside Nick. “What are you looking for?”
“Not a ‘what’ but a ‘who,’?” he says. The skin around his eyes looks tighter than it did a moment ago.
Abruptly, my chest grows cold. I can’t help but glance down at his hands. This time, his left hand is in clear view—and so is the wide silver band on his ring finger.
My fiancée.
“Oh,” I murmur. “Would that ‘who’ be Iris?”
He glances down at me. “The thing is…”
Before he can answer, two figures move from the crush of standing guests and stride toward us.
I recognize Zoe immediately. She’s doing everything in her power not to use cambion speed to get to me, and the forced slowness allows her to give Nick a hard look before she glances back to me with a raised brow. I shrug helplessly, not sure how to even begin to communicate the last hour to her without using words.
Hell, I don’t think I’ll be able to explain the last hour to her with words.
The second person beside Zoe is a very pretty, very angry-looking bronze-skinned girl with short dark hair, wearing a long black gown.
They get to us at the same time.
To my surprise, Nick presses his arm across my middle, pushing me behind him and out of the new girl’s reach. “It’s not what you think—”
“Hey,” I protest, pushing his arm away. “I don’t need you to protect me—”
“I know, but—”
“What is this?” the girl hisses below her breath. “Did you set me up?”
Nick is already shaking his head, his voice pitched low to avoid being heard, even though we’re far away from the much louder crowd. “No, Ava. We ran into each other by accident, I swear—”
“This is a goddamn double cross .” The girl, Ava, has to stand on her toes and twist around Nick’s shoulder to try and see me. When she waves her hand in the air, I catch the diamond engagement ring on her left hand, and a completely uncalled-for zip of pain streaks through my chest. Is she his real fiancée? Or another fake, like me? “You really expect me to believe you just happened to run into the—”
“Chill out, rando.” Zoe is around my other side, arm linking with mine. It takes her half a second to glance at my empty hands—no crown, no invite. She waves our invitation in her free hand at both Ava and Nick. “I don’t know you, but this is my sister, Vivienne —”
“Actually,” I interrupt her quietly, “I’m sort of… Iris now?”
Ava gapes. “What?”
Zoe rears back, eyes flashing red in surprise. “The hell you mean you’re Iris now?”
“Careful!” I warn. Zoe’s eyes flick back to brown. She, like me, is supposed to be on her most normal-human-girl behavior tonight. My furnace is closed tight, and she has to cover her cambion traits as much as possible so that if Mikael happens to get close to either one of us, he won’t suspect that we are anything other than human guests. But it’s not just Mikael I’m worried about.
I don’t know this new girl, Ava, but I can tell she knows who I am—or who I was —and she’s not happy about my presence. I don’t need her spilling that info to Zoe in the middle of Mikael’s event with warlocks around every corner, and she can’t find out that Zoe’s a cambion. “ Tamar , we need to leave—”
“Bree?” A quiet voice interrupts us.
The Black girl behind Ava and Zoe is my height, a little older than me, with long box braids and round golden glasses over her mask. Her dress is a rich velvet red and gold, and resting on her chest is a solid black pendant on a leather cord that catches my eye—then holds it. Like Nick, she knows me, but I don’t know her. As I search myself for the single clue, the single emotional remnant I might be able to associate with this new girl, I take a step toward her without noticing.
“Oh my God.” The girl’s brown eyes expand. “I can’t believe you’re here .” She starts to close the distance between us with both arms outstretched for a hug. When I don’t respond, her arms drop and she touches her mask sheepishly. “Oh, sorry. The mask.” She glances over her shoulder before whispering, “It’s me, Mariah .”
“I don’t…”
At the tone of my voice, she stiffens, then glances at Zoe, then Nick, then Ava, then back to me again. “Um… what’s going on?”
“Good question.” I groan, frustrated that I can’t isolate an emotion for this girl, Mariah, even though I want to. Just like with Nick, I can’t connect her to any of my other memories.
“ Great question,” Ava snaps.
“ Complicated question.” Nick pinches the bridge of his nose. “And no time to answer it.”
As if proving him right, the overhead lights in the foyer and ballroom entrance hall both flash. We all look up, gazing at them with varying levels of annoyance, then down. Around us, the hall has mostly cleared—we’re the only ones still lingering.
“We need to get inside the ballroom and deal with this afterward,” I say.
“Hate to say it, but she’s right.” Ava beckons to Nick. “Come on, Benedict , let’s get to our seats—”
“He can’t.” I shake my head. “?‘Benedict’ here already told Bianca that we’re Benedict and Iris. She saw us.” I shift on my feet, face heating at the memory of Nick’s mouth on mine and the warmth of his hands. “Like, really saw us. We need to stick with these identities for the rest of the night. Just in case.”
“It’s true,” Nick says. “She’s Iris now. She has to be.”
“No way,” Ava says with a scowl. “If her eyes turn even a hint of silver—”
My eyes? Turn silver? I swallow. There’s only one reason my eyes would turn that color.
Arthur. Ava and Nick both know that I’m the Scion of Arthur and a Medium. When I glance at Mariah, she is watching me warily—and I realize that she knows both of those things, too. She knows what my possession looks like, and from her guarded expression, she has reason to be scared of it.
I don’t blame her.
“I know,” Nick is whispering. “But if any of us wants to walk out of here alive, we all have to stick with these identities through dinner. So give me the ring.” He curls his fingers, a beckoning.
Ava’s teeth grind back and forth until she finally twists the ring off her finger and hands it over. “Terrific. Just terrific.” She turns to Mariah. “Is your name actually Mariah?”
“Er, tonight I’m Juliet, actually.” Mariah pulls out a card. “Curator for a fine art gallery in SoHo.”
“Did Bianca see you when you checked in?” Ava asks. “Associate your name with your face? Your clothes?”
Mariah shakes her head. “She wasn’t there. The guards only checked the aether layer on the invite. Plus, I wore my mask, just like everyone else.”
“And you?” Ava turns to Zoe. “Same questions.”
Zoe flashes her card, smirking. “I’m just some rich girl named Tamar with a sister.”
“Well, if ‘Iris’ is Iris, then who the hell am I supposed to be?” Ava demands hoarsely. Nobody answers. There is no answer. She can’t take my place now that Bianca knows me as Iris.
I have half a second to see Zoe glance at the door and make a decision, blur between Mariah and Ava, then zoom to Mariah’s side with her arm slung over the blinking girl’s shoulder.
“What—” Ava begins, but is cut off when Bianca appears around a corner, calling to us from down the hall.
“I’m so sorry, everyone, but we really need you back at your seats!”
“No problem!” Nick replies with a wave. “Just a sec!”
Out of the side of my eye, I see Ava’s eyes widen when she reads the card in her hand. Her face turns red as she twists around to glare at Zoe—who beams at her from beside Mariah.
“I need a fake sister.” Zoe tilts her head at Mariah. “We aren’t the only Black women here, but there aren’t enough of us to go unnoticed. If we get asked, something tells me it’ll be easier for this crowd to believe she’s my sister instead of you.”
Ava’s mouth snaps closed.
That’s when I realize what Zoe’s done—she’s given Ava Mariah’s card so that Mariah is now who I was supposed to be, and Ava has taken Mariah’s place as the art curator.
At least now, we’re all somebody who’s supposed to be here.
Nick, for his part, has his mouth set into that fake smile again. “Shall we, Iris?” He gestures toward the open ballroom doors.
I share one last glance with Zoe, whose eyes are glued to us both. She stares at Nick, then me, and her message is clear: Be careful with him.
But as I let Nick lead me to our table, I worry that her warning has come too late, because I don’t feel careful on Nick’s arm. I feel… reckless.