A flame can’t carry without air to keep it burning, and her admission serves all too suddenly as cut fuel for whatever spark his own hateful heart had been working hard to ignite. She stalls him there, where he still looms, stance still posed as if he means to be a threat: back hunched, shoulders drawn too far forward, but—

The sharp huff that leaves him is clearly one of disbelief, not malice.

What is this? Why does she—

“ —what?”