“Gemma Tran,” Alex repeats. The vowels are all wrong, because I’d said it the right way and not the Anglicized way. He seems to know they’re wrong too, because he makes a face at his own pronunciation. “I’ve never heard of that last name. What region of Mediusterra ¹ Yes. The land is called Mediusterra. Medius-Terra. Get it? Listen. Maybe Natter didn’t actually mean to rip off Lord of The Rings. Maybe he was actually trying to rip off Ancient China. Also, I just have to point out, because one girl who was a Classics major once roastedChess Games of Blood on Twittet and now I can’t unsee it: it should actually be Mediaterra.  is your family from?”

Well, at least I have ample practice answering this question.

“My family’s from overseas, but I was born here,” I say.

Unlike some people I’ve said that to, Alex only nods. Though to be fair, in order to judge he’d have to know what I actually look like.

“Okay. Gemma Tran. If everything you’re saying is true, then our goals are the same,” he says. He leans closer, and I have to force myself not to turn away from his freaky glass eyes. “We can work together to reach those goals: learn how you got here, and how to get Aurelia back.”

That’s—

Great. Both a great point and actually great. Now, not only do I have someone who knows everything, he’s even signing up to be ally.

Though it’s maybe not ideal that it’s Alex, and not you know, kind and level-headed Luke. But on the other hand, Alex is the one who not only survives but thrives on to of the graves of everybody thrown at him in the novels. If I stick close to him, I’d probably have a good chance of succeeding.

Only—

“Shouldn’t you ensure your family’s safety first?” I can’t stop myself from saying. I did go through the effort of saving them all. “The King and Queen are still after your family.”

“I’ll make sure both my family and Aurelia are safe, “Alex says. Easy as that. Must be nice to have that much self-confidence. He pauses. “And if you were telling the full truth, you know how history unfolded. You can help. At least, you will, if you want to achieve your goal and stay free and safe in the meantime.”

Offer both a pact and a threat, how quintessentially Alex.

But I suppose I can’t expect anything else from someone who probably doesn’t do a lot of asking.

Maybe it should be heartwarming that he puts so much faith in my meta knowledge, but like—if it’d been so easy to use it to my advantage, did he think I’d be here, basically put into a corner?

Although.

The combination of my knowledge and his abilities….

“Well? Gemma Tran?” He prompts.

“Can you even guarantee I will be free and safe?” I hear myself asking.“What if your parents and brother come back and want to ship me off to Agusta?”

“I can,” he says. “Leave them to me.”

And well—

We don’t shake hands and swear on it or anything. But we do nod solemnly at each other, and that’s about as good as.

Unfortunately, even after our pact-not-pact, I’m still stuck in the same room as Alex until his parents and Luke come back.

It’s honestly just as awkward as it sounds.

It becomes even more awkward when I scoot farther away from him, and my stomach takes the opportunity to let out the world’s biggest growl. Like, full on, chair-shaking growl.

Both of Alex’s eyebrows raise. Face burning red, I cover my stomach with both arms.

It’s not my fault that now I’m no longer in imminent mortal danger, my body’s systems have all kicked back into gear.

A smirk forms and then vanishes from Alex’s face.

He rises. I hear the doors open and close, and the sound of him and the guards talking, though I don’t know exactly about what.

But he’s gone for quite awhile.

At the 120-Mississippi mark, I do gather enough of my daring to stand up and do what I’ve been itching to since I got here: a little snooping. The only thing I leave alone is the door on the eastern-facing side of the room, which I assume leads to Alex’s bedroom. I’m snoopy but not that snoopy. It’d probably just be a four-poster bed surrounded by the same knick-knacks as this room anyway.

Most of the armor and weapons are bright enough that I assume they’re just ceremonial. The books are mostly travelogues, historical records, and stratagems. I pick up the page he’d just dropped on his desk and do a quick scan. His penmanship is atrocious, but it looks to be notes for one of the famed controlled books about magic Luke was saying the Silverwoods have in their collection. And yup, there it was: ‘elementals are immune from their own element’s damage, and while not proportionately weak to their opposing element may exhibit a distaste for it’—what does that even mean in Alex’s case? Would he like, hate baths or something—

“Found anything interesting?” Alex asks.

I drop the paper like it’s a still-hot coal.

Alex is leaning against the door, with an absolutely stacked wooden tray in his hands. There’s thick slices of dark brown bread, and miscellaneous roast meats and sausages, and shrunken cabbages drizzled with some sort of dark red sauce, and some bowls, ugh, honestly I hate sandwiches and charcuterie plates, but right now I’m tempted to use the whole tray as a spoon and shovel its contents straight down my throat right now.

He smirks at my expression, and strolls over to plop the tray right down on his desk, on top of all the books and papers. Including the one I was just looking at.

“You can just ask. If we’re working together, I’ll share as much as you share,” he says. He dips his hands in the bowl, which turns out to be full of water, and then picks up a slice of nutty bread.

Instead of deigning him with a response, I give a little sniff. Then I repeat what he just did and dig straight in with my fingers.

I do make a valiant effort at restraint— It’d been nearly a day since I’d last eaten, and I’d rather not upset my stomach. Or, more to the point, once again using those delightful medieval chamber pots or even having to go au naturale again.

But it’s hard. The bread is still warm in my hands, and the red sauce turns out to be some sort of berry sauce that’s perfect on on the sauerkraut, which is in turn also perfect on the roast chicken.

When I look back up again, it’s to see Alex regarding me with raised eyebrows.

“What?” I ask. There’s at least half still left for him.

“I didn’t say anything,” he says, tearing off a piece of the bread and dropping the rest of the slice.

I expect him to pick up his interrogation then… but surprisingly, Alex keeps his silence. For the next half-hour, the silence is almost amiable, except for the sound of chewing and rustling clothes.

I peek at him from underneath my lashes as I eat the last black sausage round. I’d been a little too preoccupied with my own dilemmas to really pay attention before, but not anymore, and… He looks worse off now than when he’d come to find me this morning? While he must’ve burned off a lot of calories in the battle last night, he’s mostly just breaking the bread up into crumbs like he’s going to feed pigeons afterwards, with pinched lips and dull lips.

I guess it hasn’t been the easiest 48 hours for him either. Fighting in his very first battle and probably taking another person’s life for the very first time. Seeing people whom he grew up with get hurt or even die. Finding out his family’s still in danger. Discovering his best friend and sort-of girlfriend is heavens knows where and a random girl is in her place. Then learning he’s a mage on top of all that.

Actually, when put like that…. Probably his last two days have been as bad as mine.

I mean, it could be worse. Thanks to me he still has all of his family.

But still. Pretty bad.

“Alex,” I say. He looks up from the remnants of the bread at me. I hesitate. “I’m sure it’ll work. You were really successful, in the… other future. There wasn’t a thing you couldn’t accomplish.” ² This is all true, by the way. I mean, at times I rolled my eyes at the "Chosen One" body armor, but now I find it kind of comforting.

Mostly because there weren’t any moral lines Alex Prime wasn’t willing to cross. But I skip over that bit.

His lips curve up a little bit.

“Of course I was,” he proclaims. “There nothing I’ve wanted to do that I haven’t done here either.”

The only reason I don’t scoff at him is because I swear he eats the rest of his deconstructed bread with a little more enthusiasm afterwards.