He scowled, pulling his hands away. Sigil clung to the ends of his fingers. He could not escape by himself. “Check it off. Lie to them.”

“I can't. You don't understand what you're asking me to do. I can't.” He pulled Daiman's hands back and held them tighter than before. “They will do a medical examination of me after each lesson and an oracle will make sure that I'm not lying or faking evidence. Lying isn't possible, Daiman. It's just once. Once and never again.”

“It's not once,” he snarled, pulling his hands away with enough force that Sigil let them go. He pushed up to his feet. The goblet cascaded off the coffee table but did not shatter on the harmless carpet. “It's now, it's the fucking gala, or wherever I end up if we can't get out. It's not once.”

Sigil refused to let himself recoil. If Daiman hit him he could handle it, even if the bruise would be shameful to nurse until he could bribe a healer into getting rid of it. “The gala is the only chance I've seen in years. Decades.” His voice was pathetically ragged and he struggled to smooth out the desperation clawing up his throat. “You have to help me, I can't get out on my own.”

“I know. I know.” He shook his head and began to pace. He walked as if he was planning on wearing a hole into the carpet. “What's the fucking point? Why not just jump out a goddamn window, honestly.”

“Because I don't want to die.”

“Good for you.” He kicked the coffee table's leg on his way by. If it hurt to commit such violence against furniture in socks, it didn't show on his face.

“You don't get it,” he ground through his teeth, pulling his robe tighter around his shoulders. He had meant what he'd said to Belladonna, about the peace time Daiman had been born in. “It's just us and then one night. Then it's over.”

“You don't get it. You like your fucking job.” He kicked the leg again for good measure and then continued to pace, touching his hand to the wall before walking to the opposite one.

Did he like his job? Everyone said he did. He supposed, if given the option, he would prefer a brothel to manual labour. In the end, it wasn't important if he liked it, because if he did he wouldn't dream of having a life of his own again. “Why would I ask for your help in getting out if I liked it so much?”

“Call Tilde back. Send me back. I'm not doing your stupid fucking checklist.”

Sigil stared at him. Something was rattling around in his chest with his pounding heart and it was threatening to spill out of his eyes. He would never get out. Bella knew he would refuse, otherwise why would she have partnered them together? “If that is what you want.” He stood stiffly, arms crossed. “There will never be another chance.”

Daiman sat back down on the sofa – or he crashed back onto it, leaning over his knees and covering his face with his palms. “Just give me a minute. Just let me think.”

He didn't want to sit next to him and risk getting shoved to the floor or into the corner of the coffee table. He needed to get his composure back before he could do that. “I don't want to be here for another seventy years. Please, Daiman.”

“Get out on your own. You can eat someone with or without me there.”

“I can't. Do you think I haven't thought of that? Do I look strong enough to hold a guard down and also find their carotid artery? Even if I got away they'd just catch me hiding in someone's shed the next afternoon.” Or he'd be caught by some stupid human and burn to death. Or get shot by police. He shuffled backwards. It would be easy to call his own guard and have Daiman thrown out into the hall to wait for Tilde on his own.

He took a step back.