I feel him look up at me, and his quiet lasts long enough for me to feel his inspection. I heard about your family.

At this, everything inside me crumbles and I feel that I could break down again.

I am sorry.

The last part is the only thing that stops me. Sorry? He sorry? A Spanish soldier who was guarding me in my imprisonment who might have had partake in the matter of my familys death was sorry!? It escapes me for a minute that he is one of Nadejes friends. When I remember, it is what prevents me from running away and keeps my cool.

Nadeje told me of their unfortunateend.

Now I could kill him.

He slaps his book together and I am startled a bit. I watch him as he switches the cross of his feet on the table. When I do not move, he looks back to me again, this time a bit more disbelievingly.

Will you sit down or not?

I contemplate it a moment, unsure of the want to get any closer to this ill tongued clever brute. I take my chances. I step forward, and knowing there is no escape now, I move to the seat opposite him. I do not sit for a moment, curious to see if he will remove his feet or not. He doesnt. What a gentleman. I sit.

You are different from what I thought you would be, I look up at his secretive tone, and the sly look on his face makes me become uneasy again.

I dont respond.

He still watches me keenly. You His face loses its smirk and he becomes a little blanched. I am taken aback by his quick set of emotion, it being unbelievable to me that he could do so after his sluggish humor. Never mind itit was something unclassified tojust a bother.

I let it go as he twists his feet and finally takes them off the table. There is a clatter as they and the chair clomp to the floor all at once. It is quite a few more seconds before he looks up again.

Leyden is an interesting city. It is quiet and more controlled than his last speech, and I can tell he is somehow more guarded.

I nod in agreement, mainly because it seems an appropriate topic to have, but also because I agree. From a whole moat of water to walls surrounding odd little communities of people it had secrets and intrigue, but after the Spanish troops came it became more or less a prison. Everybody had been trapped inside the city by the wall surrounding us, but also saved. We labored hard to keep it from falling for the past months, stacking rubble and who-knows-what material to stop the destruction of the wall. I remember the tension I had felt carrying those materials, the soreness in my hands the days after.

It was probably peaceful before we came then, huh?

I look up to the surprising remark. This coming from a Spanish soldier, I cant find a reply.

Some of us arent that foolish, you know.

I still watch him as he shifts.

Unfortunately, it is generally the leaders who are the fools.

It takes me a moment to realize I am staring at him. I glance away. I never said you were foolish He watches me. You thought it.

I look back up at him and see that he knows. You are different. It comes out before I can stop it.

He raises his eyebrows. Different, he seems to contemplate. How?

I grasp my hands tight in my lap to keep myself from fidgeting. Ijustyou seem different from the restlike Nadeje is different from the rest.

Different in a good way, or a bad way?

I cant believe it, but he actually sounds sincere. Not bad, I say carefully. Just not extremely good eitheryou have diverse principles.

I can feel his eyes piercing me as he says it. I see.

I look up as he repositions himself in the chair. I watch as he opens his book again and without another word starts to read. I am astounded. I thought we were conversing.

His eyes switch up to me again, then back to the script. You want to speak with me?

I wonder at it myself before I respond. I nod passively.

He snaps the book shut and slaps it onto the table heartily. Well then, we shall speak, shant we?

I watch him unsurely. When I say nothing, he seems frustrated.

You bore me.

I open my mouth to reply, but he beats me to it.

Let me start a conversation. The world is a complex illusion that God has created to give us, his creatures, a story. What do you say to that?

I cant focus my mind on anything he just said to be true. Excuse me?

He smirks. Apparently religion isnt your strong point, his hand drifts over his book again and hovers there, like a threat.

I study I stop as I almost say Protestantism in his presence. Christianityand that is a religion.

His hand slowly drifts back to where it came from. That is your faith, not your religion.

I frown at him, now vexed. Then religion is?

He smiles. Religion is fake. It is a tie to something you wish to believereallyit is like a hobby or athing we give service to. Everything around us is a test, to prove our reality and to make us see our true purposes. Everything is an illusion here. It is quite simple really.

I frown. I dont understand it.

He smirks. Of course you dont now. It takes years to understand it.

You are not much older than I am, I argue.

He leans back. 24, he made his point. That is not what I meant thoughI had meant studying for yearsobserving lifes complexities, not age.

I think over this for a while, taking it in. Nadeje understands this definition of religion?

He stretches his back over the chair. Hes twenty.

My heart lifts a little in a beat. I ignore it. So?

He comes back to his position. You said age had to do with something.

I frown. Noyou said it had to do with years and I stop, realizing I am arguing with a soldier, a fully trained soldier evidently out of his mind and twice my size that could easily bend me in half just the same as shove this religion down my brain.

He seems perfectly giddy however. Nadeje can teach you if you have interest.

I think over the offer a moment. Moeder would be turning in her grave.

You are distressed.

I look back up in surprise and see him watching me.

You shouldn't be.

I almost burst now. Shouldnt? I am in a soldiers house against my will, my family is gone, I am lost inside my own mind, Nadeje is gone so that I am stuck with this abominable brute, and my home is almost dominated by the Spanish. I shouldnt be distressed?

Shouldnt?

He takes five seconds of thought. No.

It is short and simple but I feel stupefied.

You have the will power to change anything you want to Lyra. Nothing makes you unhappy, you let yourself become unhappy, and in this I feel that we as humans need to see the difference between someone and something hurting us, or ourselves hurting our own lives.

I stare at him. I have to process his every letter in silence to get half of what he just said. I feel spellbound when I do get it. Not by him, but by the clear inanity of his words.

He leans back and I am brought to the present as his lips curl up in a nifty smile. You are charming when you are lost.

My face pales and I bite my tongue, hard.

He looks past me as though he had seen nothing wrong in the comment. I calm down but drop my gaze as my cheeks burn with shame.

I hear him lean back again into his chair.

I dont look up.

You did not correct me, by the way, on your proper name.

I recover slowly and the answer takes a moment. I was distracted.

He smiles, this time not only slyly but cunningly. By religion?

I glance up. It is engaging.

He chuckles and leans forward in his chair over the table, invading my space. It is excited.

I still mind.

You enjoy thinking, he observes.

You enjoy reading, I point back.

He raises his brows. Not being the judge here, but someone seems a little snippy.

I am about to argue who wouldnt be cold after all I had been through, but then I remember his definition on my power in life, tending to his religion.

Nadeje told me you rather enjoy reading too, he says it leaning back again.

I nod slightly.

Then we have two things in common, a) we both like books, and b) we both are players of this game that can never be won by ourselves alone.

I look up into his eyes and let myself take him in. He is ordinary enough, and handsome, Ill give him that much, but also there was something hidden behind his features that I had never seen elsewhere apart from Nadeje. There is a sense of purpose, of knowing his reason, of knowing his object behind every spoken word, despite his last few seeming to be absentminded.

He overlooks me a moment, giving me my time to process what he just said, I suppose.

You understand, or no?

I mildly shake my head, and see his face darken.

Tenemos mucho trabajo que hacer.

I dont understand his meaning either, but I decide internally that whatever he said I do not want to hear in my tongue. I do not request translation.

He lightens again and leans back onto the back feet of his chair so that it creaks. I highly doubt Nadeje wants his furniture broken, but I also decide not to point that one out to him.

Do you speak Spanish?

I lace my fingers in my lap and glimpse down. No. Only Dutch and a little bit of English.

Astonishing how your city does not have such high education.

It strikes me in the head hard, like a lash of his tongue, and though it was not meant to be harmful, I resent it.

Maybe if the King wasnt so caught up in his own ideas about religion, we could actually attain such priorities as you get to in Spain so easily.

I speak it lightly, but that I had rendered the Kings means in my speech, I could be in serious trouble despite the soft tone.

He does not sound angered when he speaks, and this only kindles me more. You are right, apart from that the King is also caught up in his fear to accept another religion, not all religion.

I look up at him and bite my tongue. He is unbelievable. He speaks against his own King, spits out, teases, and flirts with me, apologizes for my circumstance, and acts like an astute being. What is he?

Why do you speak about him so calmly, with no defense on his part?

He frowns thoughtfully at this and takes a moment. He speaks softly. Perhaps just because we are positioned in his army does not mean that we are for him as a ruler.

This stops me and I am left hanging. I hesitate, and then let it out. Who are you for then?

He looks me in the eyes. Me? I honestly am for William, but you know I cannot speak for Nadeje on that account, or my fellow comrades; they are often playing roles I cannot attest for.

I feel like he just hit me. William? Was that not the man every Dutch child, man, woman, family was counting on? The Spanishnothe Spanish were meant to be for I swallow down my sour taste and look elsewhere than his face.

You?