Sava turned her head slowly in his direction. “Kilcrea,” she repeated. Her eyes seemed to smolder with a dark light from within.

The man seemed to hesitate. “You know the area?”

She gave a low laugh. “No. No, I don’t.”

“Then what…”

“It doesn’t matter,” Sava said a little dismissively. “Yet. But you say this was unusual?”

“It seemed that way,” the man replied, though a part of his voice still sounded more on edge than it had before.

“I’ll look into it,” she promised.

The young man nodded his masked head and prepared to leave, but again Sava stopped him. With her hand on his arm, but more gently this time, she said, “That wasn’t all you came for, was it?”

He sighed. “It was. How many times do I have to tell you…”

“Obviously more than you have,” she cut him off. “I wouldn’t mind listening to anything you have to say. Besides, I can’t imagine you really feel that way.”

“Well, maybe you need to expand your mind,” he told her sharply, pulling his arm away. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have things I need to get to. My life isn’t entirely wrapped up in you and your side of the war.”

She faked to look hurt. “Oh, it’s not? How sad. Mine is.” Her smile was smirking – she was sure he was just covering things up like he used to, and like she usually had to. But she could see he was at least telling the truth about leaving, so she ducked in front of him towards the door. “Come on,” she coaxed, “please at least answer one more question. But this one’s not going to be about the war.”

He seemed frustrated about being blocked in, but frustrated like he was dealing with a pestering child, not anything serious. “That depends on the question.”

“How about something like what is it you do all the time?” She thought of something better. “Or no, who are you? I’ve never seen your face, I don’t know your name… I know nothing about you!”

“Did it ever occur to you that that might be on purpose?” he retorted. “And you know you have seen my face.”

Sava shrugged. “Yes, but that was one time, years ago, for about two seconds. It doesn’t count! How am I supposed to worry about you when I don’t know what you look like? I hardly even remember how you used to.” That part was a lie, though – she could still see the image clearly in her mind. The hood draped over a scared, guilty look.

“Maybe you aren’t supposed to worry about me,” he answered, sounding highly annoyed.

Ignoring the hint, she went on, “At least you know what I look like. You can think about me any time you want to. When do you think of me, anyway?”

“Really? That’s your question?”

She nodded. There was a smile on her face that was probably meant to look sweet, but it only seemed fake. It looked more devious than anything, as though she wasn’t used to being nice. “I won’t let you leave until you answer.”

The blank mask stared down at her for almost a full minute, and even though Sava couldn’t see his eyes she could feel the disdain he was glaring into her face. She wasn’t about to give up, though. She’d been under worse stares.

His hood finally swayed as he slowly shook his head at her. “You need a life,” he told her.

“You realize who you’re talking to, right? I very definitely have a ‘life’.” She huffed, a little frustrated. “Now when do you think of me?”

“Only when I—”

Suddenly a knock sounded and almost in the same moment one of the many other doors slid open. A thin, younger girl walked in, her loose clothes of a bleached-grey color flaring out a little behind her as she went. She looked like she was approaching Sava’s chair, but when she noticed the two people standing at the door she stopped. A confused look came onto her pale face and she brushed a strand of messy white-blonde hair out of her strangely dilated light eyes.

“I’m sorry, was this a bad time?” the girl, who looked and sounded about ten years old, asked hesitantly. “I just came in to tell you the tests were successful…”

Sava moved out from between the cloaked young man and the door, her expression showing she had forgotten about the interaction of a few seconds before. “I can see they were. I hardly even recognized you. What did they say about when it will be ready?”

“When what will be ready?” asked the man, who had stayed his hand from pushing the button to reopen the door to listen.

Sava barely glanced his way. “You’re my spy. I don’t tell you things, you tell me. You can go now.” She dismissed him with a wave of her hand and turned her attention back to the pale girl, who looked out of place in the dark room. “So did they?” Neither of them noticed as the man left the room. The girl shook her head in reply, becoming a little dizzy from the movement.

“Yeah, the only holdup was the solution, and they finally got it to work right. So it’s ready now. Oh, and, um… one of the test rooms got destroyed,” she said, shrinking back a little.

Sava smiled a little cruelly. “Good,” she said. “That means so will the real subject.” She turned her attention to the locks of light hair coming over the girl’s shoulder, fingering them with care and obvious intrigue. “They’ll never know what hit them.”