Hakan crouched on the balls of his feet, staring into her eyes, which had gone soft, unable to focus. “Now, would you like to tell me who you really are?”

She blinked. Her body shivered.

“You can speak if you want to. It simply takes more effort. Devrim has been watching you, as have the other women. They know that you leave the tower at night. That you spy upon my room from the gardens. Why? Why do you do this?”

“I…” A horrible shiver ran down her frame, preventing her from speaking. She closed her eyes tightly and opened them again, somehow managing to fix them on him once more. “I only wished to know you.”

“For what purpose?”

She took a deep breath and released it in slow, halting increments. Blood trickled from beneath her left temple from where it had struck the floor. It trailed along the tile until it found a crease, and then it spread along the seam between the stones. “I wanted to know the sort of man you were.”

“Who sent you?”

“I came of my own free will.”

“Don’t lie. You may yet live. There is a counter to the poison, but I cannot use it if I think you’ve spoken even one more lie to me.”

She blinked, a slow and measured movement. Her breath was shallower than it’d been only moments ago. “I wouldn’t lie.” The words were soft, like the dying breeze of dusk.

Hakan cleared his throat, which felt suddenly constricted. He cleared it again. “There is more to the story. I would know, Arvaneh.”

“My name… is Sariya…”

He was surprised to hear fire in her words. He had underestimated her reserves of strength. “Sariya. I would know before you pass. Are you an assassin? Were you sent by the Haelish kings? Or the crones who live in the desert?”

“I am… my own woman. And I… know much… of you.”