Lilliana straightened herself up to her full height.
“How did you get through?” she asked.
“I knew better than to get in her way,” Fortunato said. “Someone in a state that’s ill-disposed to distinguishing friend from foe is also not apt to prioritize targets by anything more than their proximity and convenience of striking.”
“Always so quick to sacrifice others,” Lilliana said.
“I resent the implications of that statement,” Fortunato said. “To call it a ’sacrifice’ suggests that they meant something to me and that their loss has some sort of meaning.”‘
“It’s really flattering to realize that you must have felt that way about me when you threw me over to chase that countess,” Lilliana said.
“I’m not talking about you, and I didn’t ‘throw you over’,” Fortunato said. “I thought that what you and I had was comfortably established… I had no idea you’d take it so personally when I decided to branch out.” He smiled and pointed his lightning pistol at her. “But look on the bright side. If the worst thing that happens to you today is a little ego bruising…”
Another person might have either begged or just told him to just get it over with. Lilliana did neither. She was a master of stalling, of flattering or distracting or cozening, but she never begged. When someone had the power of life and death over her, her goal was to get out of that situation, not to reinforce it.
The last thing she wanted was to speed things along. Regan and Cicada, the most terrifying human warriors she had ever known, were both fighting on her side, forging a path of escape for her.
“I don’t remember you being quite that jolly,” Lilliana said.
“I’ve acquired a sense of humor in my old age,” Fortunato said. “You have to enjoy what you do, or find something else.”
“Is that what you’re doing?”
“In a manner of speaking,” he said. “Though it’s not so much a matter of finding something new as taking back something old, something I used to enjoy very much.”
“Are you talking about me or are you talking about your little gambling hell?” Lilliana asked.
“Either,” he said. “Both, maybe. It would be easier to turn the growing battle in my direction with you by my side, Lilliana. But if you’re not interested, well… I could give up the Finger for now if it meant keeping you.”
“You never know when to give up, do you?” she said, shaking her head.
“Perhaps it’s escaped your notice, but I’m armed and you are not,” Fortunato said. “Do you mean to say that I should surrender to you?”
“No,” she said. “I wouldn’t mind it, but no, I’m not saying that. I’m saying you should give up. None of this that’s happening now would have happened if you could have accepted the fact that you’d lost control of the station, that it had grown beyond you. This vendetta that’s hanging between us wouldn’t exist if you’d known how to let me go… and you know what? I can’t make any promises about what-ifs and might’ve-beens, but maybe if you hadn’t tried to hold me so tightly in the first place, you wouldn’t have needed to let me go.”
“So, was it because of the countess or because I held you too tightly?”
“I can’t separate it out,” Lilliana said. “Maybe I would have understood what you were doing, though, if you’d tried explaining it… but that would have required you caring whether I understood or not. You saw me as a possession and so you took it for granted that I’d stay where you put me. You knew me better than anyone else, Fortunato… you should have known better than that.”
“Maybe I should have,” Fortunato said. “But I can learn. I did let go, after all… I tried to kill you.” He smiled again. “I think that counts for something. Maybe it would count for more if I actually succeeded.”
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