Cixi instantaneously turned back to the couch.
It was empty.
There was no dent left in the cushion. The only thing that felt real in that moment was the knife lying in her palm.
"Cassian?" She said it to the empty seat, quietly, as if she would receive a reply from the empty sofa.
To her disappointment, the couch did not answer her back because there was no invisible Cassian.
She tried to tell herself she had imagined the man beside her, that fear and low light had built a second Cassian out of nothing. But that lie had never once held for her. She did not hallucinate. Whatever her eyes showed her had always, every single time, turned out to be real.
So both of them had been real.
Footsteps crossed the room toward her.
She looked up. Cassian, the one who had come through the door, was crossing the room toward her, slow and unhurried, his dark eyes fixed on her face.
