Chapter 189: Please leave me alone

She looked at him for a long moment, and he looked back, and his face was quiet and tired. There was no anger in it.

There was no smugness either, none of the smirk she had seen on the news broadcast when they replayed the footage from the Roaring Lions.

It was just Adam. Or just Leon. She could not tell the difference anymore.

She let out a long, shaky breath.

"I should have calmed down sooner," she said. "It was stupid to shout like that."

"It was not stupid."

"It was. You could have done anything." She wrapped her arms tighter around her knees and gave a weak, humorless smile. Then she lifted her eyes to his, and her voice dropped to a whisper.

"If I do not shout... you will not do anything to me, right?"

"No," Leon said. "I will not do anything to you."

Iris searched his face for a long time. She was still sitting on the floor with her back against the wall, and her arms were wrapped so tightly around her knees that her knuckles had gone pale.

"That is not an answer," she said. "That is just what you would say."

"Then I will say something that I would not say." Leon looked at the toppled chair, then at the cold tea dripping off the edge of the table, and he let out a slow breath. "I am sorry."

She blinked.

"I am sorry that I lied to you. I am sorry that I let you make me tea and give me your sofa, and that you did not know who you were doing it for. You did nothing wrong, and I used your house like a hole to hide in."

"You are only saying that because I am scared of you."

"I am saying it because it is true."

She did not answer. Her eyes dropped to the floor again, but she did not tell him to leave, and Leon took that as permission to go on.

"My name is Leon Allistar," he said. "That part you already know. The news is right about some things. I destroyed the Roaring Lions, and I killed the man who led it. His name was Teon, and he was my father."

Iris flinched at the word, though she had already heard it on the broadcast.

"But the news is wrong about why," Leon said.

"They say that I plotted a coup. They say I wanted his guild, and that I tried to take it from him. I never did."

"About a year ago, I awakened a D-rank talent, and my family decided that a son like that was not worth keeping. They threw me out, and my own brother laughed while they did it."

"Your brother?"

"I will tell you about him another day." He shook his head once.

"The Association needed a story that made the Roaring Lions look like the victim, so it made one. I do not care what the world thinks of me. I care a little that you believed it, and that I could not tell you otherwise."

"Why could you not?"

"Because I did not know whether you would call someone."

The words sat in the kitchen between them, and Iris’s mouth tightened. It was an ugly answer, and he had given it plainly.

"When I came to your door, I had nowhere else to go," Leon said.

"You asked my name, and I gave you a false one. That... was a wrong thing to do, and I do not have an excuse for it."

"You had a thousand chances."

"I did."

"You could have told me... said something at least." she said.

"Yeah... you’re right."

"That does not make it right."

"No," Leon agreed. "It does not."

For a while neither of them spoke. The only sound in the kitchen was the tea, and Leon let it drip. He had said what he came to say. He did not know the next step, and for once he did not try to pretend that he did.

Iris wiped her face with her sleeve. She pushed herself up the wall until she was standing, and she kept her back against it, as if it were the only thing she could trust.

"The news said that you went to the Association today," Iris said, without looking at him. "They said there was a fight. They did not say who won."

"I did."

"Did anyone die?"

"One man." Leon did not look away from her. "He was an S-rank, and he would not stop. I let what he threw at me go back to him."

Iris closed her eyes briefly. She did not say anything about it, and Leon was grateful.

"And you went there on purpose," she said.

"Yes."

"Why?"

"I asked them for something, and they said yes. The whole country will know by the end of the week." He shrugged. "It will not be good news for the Association."

"Is it going to make things worse for you?"

"For me, no. For them... maybe."

"That is not as comforting as you think it is."

"I did not mean it to be comforting."

She let out a short breath through her nose, and the corner of her mouth moved again. Then it fell, and she was serious.

"Did you ever mean to hurt me?" she asked.

"No."

"Not even once? Not when you were angry, or tired, or when I said something that made you..."

"Not once."

"If I had been in your way?"

Leon thought about it. He considered lying, because a lie would have been easier. But he had just spent ten minutes standing in front of her, apologizing for exactly that.

"I would have moved you," he said. "I would not have hurt you."

Her lips twitched, and for a moment it looked as though she might laugh. It did not become a laugh, but it was close.

"That is the most honest thing you have ever said to me."

"It is also the most stupid."

"Yes," Iris said. "It is."

She pressed her palm against her forehead. "And you ate all of my bread."

"I did."

"A whole loaf, hmph."

"Adam was very hungry."

"Adam does not exist."

"Then Leon was very hungry," he said. "I will pay you back for the bread."

"With what money? You cannot walk into a shop without half the street screaming."

"I will find a way."

"You will find a way," Iris repeated, and she shook her head slowly, like a woman who had just realized that she was having an argument about bread with the most wanted man in the country.

She walked slowly to the table and righted the fallen chair. She did it with her hands shaking, but she did it, and then she picked up the cup of cold tea and looked at it as though she had never seen it before. She set it in the sink.

"I accept your apology," she said, with her back to him.

Leon let out a breath that he had not realized he was holding.

"I do not forgive you," she added quickly. "Not yet. Those are two different things. I accept it because I can hear that you mean it, and because I would rather not scream at you for the rest of my life. But I do not want you here."

"I understand."

"I mean it. Not right now. I need to think, and I cannot do that with you standing in my kitchen looking like a sad dog."

"I do not look like a sad dog."

"You look exactly like a sad dog."

He opened his mouth to argue, and then he thought better of it.

"I will go," he said.

"Good."

"If you need anything..."

"I will not need anything."

"If you do."

"Leon." She turned around and looked at him, and her eyes were still red, but her voice was steady. "Please leave me alone."

It was the first time that she had said his real name without screaming it. He found, to his own surprise, that he did not mind how it sounded.

He nodded once. He did not say goodbye. He turned toward the back door, where the small yard and the quiet street lay beyond the glass, and he took a step.

He did not take a second one, and suddenly stopped with one foot still raised.

The air had gone completely still, and behind him, very faintly, something began to hum.

It was a thin, clean note, like a wet finger running around the rim of a glass. It came from the place where Iris stood, and as it rose, a cold white light spread across the floor and up the legs of the table and onto the wall beside him.

Leon turned around slowly.

Iris was standing exactly where he had left her, with one hand held out in front of her and her fingers curled, like they were holding something.

Light rapidly gathered in her palm, pulling itself into shape.