“My brother—” Athena began, struggling with her thoughts as he had with his. “You think he guesses, or will guess, what you are, and wants me away from you. But he has no reason to think you would harm me.”
“I could never harm you, Athena.”
He felt her reaction like a punch in the belly. “I know you would not,” she said in a whisper. “Yet if Niall knew what you did tonight—”
“He doesn’t know.” He rose, stretching his spine until it cracked. “But you do not want him to find me here. I came to tell you that the troupe will stand by you. If you want us to stay, we will, no matter what your brother says.”
Too much had shocked her, too much had been said to dismiss, but she gamely wrestled her bewilderment into submission and fought her way back to firmer ground. “Why would you defy Niall when he offered to pay you?”
“Maybe we don’t like being ordered about by townies.”
“That is not a good reason. Niall has much influence—”
“Harry knows what the performance means to you. He likes you. So does Caitlin.”
“That is kind of them. And… and you?”
“I don’t like your brother.”
She gave a startled laugh. “You are very blunt.”
“I don’t like what he does to you.”
“To me?”
“Controlling you. Making sure you stay the way you are.”
Her eyes widened. “He doesn’t try to keep me here… this way. It cannot be helped.” She shook her head, denying whatever unpleasant thoughts he had put in her mind. “Niall enables me to do what I can for the destitute and disadvantaged. He wants only what is best for me, to make me happy. He is a good man.”
“He is human. You are not.”
She was quiet for a long time. “You are a strange man, Morgan Holt. You hardly know me. Neither does Harry, or Caitlin. Yet you would do this for me.”
“You help people you don’t know. Why should the troupers be different? Or aren’t we saintly enough?”
“I am not saint,” she said softly. “What do you want me to do?”
“It is not my choice.”
“Yet you came here, when you could have sent a message tomorrow.”
“Are you afraid to stand up to your brother?” he demanded. “Caitlin said you wouldn’t be. She said you had a will of your own. Do you, Athena? Is it easier to go along and pretend you agree with your brother so that you can forget what you gave up?”
She stared at him, stricken. Caitlin’s words came back to Morgan as vividly as if she stood in the room beside him. “Are you testing her, Morgan? Do you want her to fail, so that you will have no reason to care?”
And he realized that he stood on the edge of a precipice, half longing for her to send them away, half hoping that she had the courage to be what her blood made her. Not this cripple in a chair, but a woman of spirit and strength. She was a prisoner who did not recognize her prison or the jailers she trusted. Her independence and social influence were illusions, her good works false consolation, her pride and acceptance of her fate only brittle paper masks that would crumple at a touch.
Yet if she decided to fight, if she dared to face the realities she so willfully ignored, then he was bound to her course. To her. For somewhere, sometime since their first meeting, he had taken Athena Munroe into his pack just as he had the troupers—reluctantly, hating himself for his weakness, but bound just as surely.
He had not wanted this responsibility for another person. He had meant to spend his life alone, unattached, unfeeling.
But the circus had changed him—Caitlin, Harry, Ulysses. He had begun to forget what it was like to live in chains, and what had put him there.
Athena’s low sigh called him back from the past. “You asked for my decision,” she said, meeting his gaze. “I want you to stay. The children are expecting a special treat, and I will not disappoint them. I will find a way to convince my brother, no matter what it takes.”