Put it down," he says.
I don't.
I look at him across the dim ward — across my sleeping sister, across the low lamplight, across everything — and I hold the knife and I hold his gaze and I do not put it down because putting it down means something I am not ready to mean.
Varder steps further into the room.
"Hazel." His voice is very controlled. The kind of controlled that is not calm but is performing calm because calm is the only thing useful right now. "Look at me."
"I am looking at you," I say.
"Look at me and put the knife down."
"She has everything," I say. My voice comes out quieter than I intended. Not weak — I am not weak — but quiet in the way things are quiet when they have been held inside for a very long time and are finally finding air. "She has always had everything.
She didn't even want any of it. She stood at that ceremony with her eyes down and her hands folded wishing she were somewhere else and you—" I stop. "You looked at her."
