Dante continued to grin as Rhaella stared at him, uncomprehending for far longer than he had expected. She answered him, after a few long moments, with a slow and almost hesitant answer. Either her brain was working more slowly than usual, with seemed surprisingly likely, or she wasn’t confident in what she was about to say.

When at last she finished, it took Dante a minute to realise what she was referring to, and his expression was momentarily puzzled. However, once her meaning dawned on him, he chuckled, pleasantly amused once again. It was the first time his blindness had been referred to as a ‘sensitive situation’.

Though he had absorbed with a hungry eagerness the interesting information Rhaella had given him, he was instantly more interested in her evasive wording. He couldn’t quite believe that she would dance around the subject so delicately, when she was the very same mare who had washed up on his beach and accused him quite blatantly of being all kinds of evil.

“Fascinating,” he commented. The word clearly sounded like the start of a sentence, but he meant it honestly. Rhaella’s distinctly foreign origins and culture was as intriguing to him as the twins he had once yearned to befriend.

After a moment’s pause, he continued, smiling again.

“You can say it, you know,” he said, eyeing her curiously. “It doesn’t bother me.”

DANTE
a man possessed of some radical notions