The question hung in the electric air, heavier and thicker than the ozone from the storm outside. "What,"—the low rumble vibrated in Rossie's ribs—"have you done?"
Rossie couldn't answer. She couldn't breathe. Her lungs felt like sandpaper. Every inhale was a shard of ice, and every exhale was a barely audible keen.
She was still seeing it. The Web. The glittering, three-dimensional latticework beneath Jakarta, an order so cold and ancient, woven from oaths and debts. She saw her family's golden thread, burning bright, running straight into the pulsating heart of darkness that was the man before her.
She tried to recoil, to scramble backward on the furs, but her body wouldn't obey. She was an exposed nerve, laid bare on a predator's altar.
The shock in Maher's eyes—that terrifying, primal shock—was beginning to fade. It was not replaced by his usual, analytical calm. Something else was taking its place. The silver fire in his eyes didn't die; it focused. Like moonlight concentrated through a lens until it became a weapon.
He didn't move. He just watched her, observing the tremors that ripped through her frame, cataloging the terror flooding her pupils. He was analyzing the data.
And then, his expression shifted again. He realized something.
He hadn't just been seen. He had been felt.
The small, broken consciousness hadn't just peeked inside. For a fraction of a second, it had touched him. And in that touch, he had also felt her. He had felt the fragile, hot source from which the emotions he'd been harvesting were born.
That hunger. That new, deeper hunger.
It was the difference between drinking the wine and discovering the vineyard where it grew. He no longer wanted the fruit; he wanted the soil itself.
"You..." Rossie finally managed to whisper, her voice cracking. "I saw... my family..."
The admission was a spark on gasoline.
Maher moved.
He crossed the room in two soundless strides and knelt beside the bed. It was a terrifying shift in proximity. He was no longer commanding from above; he was down on her level. He was close enough to feel the panicked heat radiating from her skin, close enough to inhale her sobbing breaths.
He raised his hand. Rossie flinched, screwing her eyes shut, expecting a command, or a punishment, or the start of some new, unimaginable protocol.
His fingers were cold. They did not land on her forehead.
The touch landed on her jaw, his thumb pressing against her chin, gently but inexorably tilting her face up. He forced her to open her eyes. Forced her to meet his gaze.
"You saw," he stated. It was not a question. It was a confirmation.
"Yes," she whispered, and the tears finally betrayed her, running hot against her cold cheeks.
"Everything," he continued, the low-key vibration of his voice caressing her ear. "The Web. The contracts. The Anchor." His eyes traced her features, as if he were reading a complex new map. "You felt me."
"I didn't... I didn't mean to," she sobbed. "It... you pulled me. Your energy..."
"That energy was for you," he said, his tone almost curious. "To receive. Not to follow."
"It... connected."
"Yes." That new expression finally settled on his face. The one that would haunt Rossie more than any anger or cruelty. It was an expression of ravenous discovery. "It appears it did."
He had been spending three days maintaining an engine. Now, he realized he had been sitting next to a locked door. And Rossie had just handed him the key.
"The previous protocol," Maher said softly, his thumb moving from her chin to brush a tear from her cheek—a gesture that mimicked tenderness so perfectly it made it grotesque, "is no longer sufficient."
He had been content with despair. It was a simple, reliable fuel.
But what he had just felt, that reciprocal touch of her consciousness, her raw essence linked with his... that was not fuel. That was ambrosia.
He leaned closer. The storm howled outside, throwing rain against the windows like handfuls of gravel. The fire in the hearth crackled softly. The room had shrunk to this suffocating, confessional space.
"How," he whispered, and his silver eyes pinned hers, "did you do it?"
Rossie shook violently. "I don't know! I just... I followed you!"
"Then," he murmured, more to himself than to her, "you will learn to do it again."
He drew his hand back, and the loss of that cold warmth left her chilled to the bone.
Maher stood. He no longer looked shocked. He looked... energized. The static in the room had shifted from stunned surprise to a terrible anticipation. The predator had found a new, far more interesting, game.
"Before," he said, walking to the window, staring out at the grey curtain that hid Jakarta, "I required your despair."
He turned, his tall, perfect silhouette stark against the chaotic storm.
"Now, Rossie," he said, and her name sounded like a claim of ownership. "I require you."