Chapter 201: I won’t be watching

"No?"

"Good." Her voice shook a little, and she steadied it. "You asked me last night what I was, and I would not say. This is the only part that I can give you. It is not much, but it is true."

He sat in the quiet of the kitchen and looked at her.

"Now," she said. "It is your turn."

"For what?"

"For an answer. I want to know why you asked them for that rank."

He frowned. "You heard?"

"It was on the broadcast. SSS. The first one in thirty years." She tipped her head. "Everybody is talking about it."

"They say that you are going to be announced in front of the whole country. I want to know why. I do not mean the version that you tell to the Association. I mean the real one."

Leon turned the cup in his hands.

He considered the question. He had been asked it before, in the council hall, by ten broken S-ranks, and he had given them an arrogant answer because it had amused him.

This was not the same. She was not asking about his pride. She was asking him, plainly, to say something that mattered.

"Because I am tired of hiding," he said, but he knew deep down that it wasn’t the full reason.

The actual reason he decided to come out in the open was to prevent anyone from targeting Iris.

"That is a reason for the bounty."

"It is also a reason for the rank." He put the cup down. "A bounty is only a number that someone has written next to your name. They can write another number tomorrow."

"They can write a hundred of them. As long as there is somebody above you who can sign the order, you are not safe."

"And an SSS-rank has nobody above him."

"Exactly."

"That is a very simple way to think."

"It is a very simple world."

She was silent for a moment. "Is that all?"

"No."

"What else?"

He hesitated. He could feel the answer sitting in his chest, awkward and heavy, and he did not much like the shape of it.

"The people at the top are the ones who write the lists," Leon said. "They wrote one for me. They wrote one for your family. I do not think that it is a coincidence."

"If I am standing at the top, I can see who is writing them." He looked at her. "And I can tear up the pages."

Iris did not move.

"I am not doing it for you," he said quickly. "I want to be clear about that. I would have done it anyway. But when I heard what they did, I thought..." He stopped. "I thought that I would very much like to be in the room when they decide to do it again."

The kitchen was very still.

"That is the most dangerous thing that you have said yet," Iris said softly.

"I know."

"You would be fighting them for the rest of your life."

"I expect so."

"And you think that you would win."

"I do not think. I know." He smiled, a little crookedly. "I am arrogant. I have been told."

She let out a long breath, and for the first time since she had opened the door, the lines of her face softened. "You are an idiot," she said, but there was no heat in it.

"Probably."

"Do not do it for me."

"I will do it for myself," said Leon. "And if it happens to be good for you as well, I will try not to mind."

"Hm."

She picked up her tea and drank. He picked up his. For a minute the two of them sat with their cups, listening to the morning begin outside the window. A cart went by. The baker’s boy whistled. Somewhere a shutter banged.

"You will go to the ceremony," Iris said.

"Yes."

"In front of everyone."

"Yes."

"I will not be watching."

"I did not ask you to."

"I am only saying." She set down her cup. "I do not like crowds, and I do not like the Association, and I do not like cameras. I will be here, in this kitchen, with the door locked."

"That is very sensible."

"I know that it is."

"And you will not turn on the screen."

"No."

"Not even to check that I am not dead?"

She stared at him. Her mouth opened and closed.

"That," said Iris, "is a cruel thing to say."

"Is it?"

"Yes."

"I am sorry."

"No, you are not. You are smiling."

He was. He tried to stop, and found that he could not. She glared at him for a long moment, and then, with great dignity, she picked up the last slice of bread and put it on his plate.

"Eat," she said. "And then go and get some sleep. You look dreadful."

"Is that a yes to the sofa?"

"It is a yes to the sofa," said Iris, "for one night. Do not think that it is anything more."

Leon ate the last slice of bread, and for a while he did not say anything.

Iris cleared the plates. She did it briskly, with her back to him, the way a person does when she has decided not to be seen being soft.

"Those are mine," she said.

"I know. I was only looking."

It was a short shelf of old books, and he had seen them before.

She had shown him some of them on the afternoon that they met in the library, when he had shown curiosity in the stories about legends like Arthur.

He stood up and went to the sofa.

The sofa was narrow and worn and smelled of lavender, and a blanket lay folded over its arm. He sat down on it meaning to rest his eyes for a moment.

’You are very tired,’ Medusa said gently, somewhere at the back of his head. ’You can sleep, I’ll watch over you.’

He tried to answer her, and the words went soft.