QUOTE : We were fools.”<br /><br />“You were children. Was there no one to protect you?”<br /><br />“Was there anyone to protect you?”<br /><br />“My father. My mother. They would have done anything to keep me from being stolen.”<br /><br />“And they would have been mowed down by slavers.”<br /><br />“Then I guess I was lucky I didn’t have to see that.”<br /><br />How could she still look at the world that way? “Sold into a brothel at age fourteen and you count yourself lucky.”<br /><br />“They loved me. They love me. I believe that.” He saw her draw closer in the mirror. Her black hair was an ink splash against the white tile walls. She paused behind him. “You protected me, Kaz.”<br /><br />“The fact that you’re bleeding through your bandages tells me otherwise.”<br /><br />She glanced down. A red blossom of blood had spread on the bandage tied around her shoulder. She tugged awkwardly at the strip of towel. “I need Nina to fix this one.”<br /><br />He didn’t mean to say it. He meant to let her go. “I can help you.”<br /><br />Her gaze snapped to his in the mirror, wary as if gauging an opponent. <i>I can help you.</i> They were the first words she’d spoken to him, standing in the parlor of the Menagerie, draped in purple silk, eyes lined in kohl. She had helped him. And she’d nearly destroyed him. Maybe he should let her finish the job.