Leave you like they left me here.

His lips parted, as though to respond to the girl's recognition. She had been smiling at him; a smile that wanted to give something other than the malice of another's smirk. A comfort thread its way to him, blue and fluid like her eyes, and tried to embrace. And he would've felt it, if not for the impervious poignance of all that had been, and all that might.

He looked upon Stelon, watching her unfeigned beauty for a few moments more, then let his eyes fall. The shadows danced across the floor as he stared, their silence louder than his own. But the music was still humming, the stares still coming, and he was wishing again for it all to end. The Shrike would be announcing his betrayal to everyone soon, and he wouldn't matter; there was nothing more he could do. Even when he remembered those strands of familiar pink, or that voice of defiance, he couldn't bring himself to believe it was truly Miraye. She might've been an illusion, like the many he was put under before.

But the girl who seemed so different from the rest -- she was true. Stelon might not be one of them, he thought; she looked much too natural -- too young to be one of the corrupt. Tic found his eyes straying; moving along the floor to catch sight of her as he wondered. And her feet, he suddenly saw -- the shoes were not of luxury -- but brown, like the earth, and purer than anyone else's.

For moments, his hopes raised, coaxed by the comfort in Stelon's presence. But he didn't let them linger high, remembering the closeness of another at his side.