5

The Mask
Made Twice

The rest of the nobles and I file nearer to the banquet hall, seating ourselves in the same way Y’shennria taught me—eldest to youngest, highest blood rank to lowest. Fione sits before me, of course, and the royal family sits before anyone else.

It’s strange to consider this normal, to watch the banquet happen without worrying about what spoons to use. I know by now, my hands moving automatically for each delicate wipe of my face and tilt of my bowl. I eat only a little, wary of the blood tears that accompany a Heartless trying to eat human food. I used to be so worried about manners at the table, but now my mind is elsewhere, racing back and forth on a track by itself as my body moves on the track Y’shennria built for me.

The talk of the tables echoes in the high, gilded ceiling; at the forefront of every conversation is Varia. In hushed tones around pumpkin dumplings and game-hen soup, they’ll discuss witches, the war, and then look to her, positing among themselves where she’s been these past five years and why.

Varia, on the other hand, puts herself above the talk—maneuvering effortlessly through the social rigmarole with assertive humor and grace, talking easily with the ministers and the servants alike. She dotes on Fione, who’s seated right next to her, offering her small tidbits of food and touching her shoulder at every opportunity. Their glances to each other are warm, Fione’s smile apple-cheeked and rosy, and I’m reminded once more how much Fione loved—loves—Varia. And Varia, in return, seems keen on returning the affections. Perhaps now Fione will get the chance to tell Varia how she really feels, and that thought is a spot of brightness in the midst of all my shadowed pain.

Varia doesn’t once command me to come to her or do anything at all. She doesn’t so much as look at me. Neither does Fione—the few times I find her eyes on me, she skitters them away instantly and focuses on Varia’s smiling face. They’re utterly absorbed in each other. Malachite, looming on the wall behind Lucien, catches his ruby eyes on mine and flashes them away quickly. Neither he nor Fione can bear to look at me for long.

But at the head of the table, Lucien—

My chest compresses into a hard knot as I find his midnight eyes focused squarely on me. Has he been looking at me this whole time? I can’t bring myself to return his stare. My lie ruined everything. My own selfish desires cut down our chances before they could even grow. There is a me somewhere who’s not Heartless, who hasn’t lied to him, who sits beside him at this banquet and smiles at him, and he smiles back, and they are in love.

But I am not her.

I have, maybe, never been her. And now I never will be.

My eyes skitter to his parents instead—the king and queen. They lavish their attention on Varia, roaring with laughter at her jokes and hanging on her every word. The whole banquet is drawn to her, so when Lucien stands and excuses himself, his parents let it happen. Malachite follows him. The table whispers about it for a moment, but then someone mentions how beautiful Varia looks, and that’s the end of their concern.

Varia is probably the reason why, when I get up and excuse myself, too, no one pays much attention, not even Varia herself. She might be my witch, and she might have my body under her control, but I’ll be damned if I linger beside her every minute of every day yearning for my heart.

I throw on the cloak that came with the dress—a simple blue thing—and follow Lucien from a forty-pace distance. Somewhere between the deepfish stew and the roast pork, I made up my mind to say something to the prince tonight. An apology? Would that be too hollow? I don’t know, but I have to try. I ignore the telltale clenching in my stomach as the food tries to come out as blood tears—in this palace there are no less than a hundred shadowy places to duck into and rearrange oneself if one must.

Malachite pads at his side, and I follow them as far as I can, to the border of the Serpent’s Wing, where only the noble family is allowed. The two boys disappear around a corner, leaving me to hover at a window, pacing back and forth. If he’s retiring for the night, if he doesn’t come out again—

“If you were any more obvious, you’d be wearing a sign with his name on it.”

My head snaps up at the voice—Malachite saunters down the hall toward me. The moonlight from the Blue Giant outside catches the rubies in his armor, the combined light flashing violet. His eyes are hooded, and his mouth is set in a flat line. When he reaches me, I’m not sure what to say. Or how to say it.

“I’m sorry,” I finally manage. Malachite scoffs, his ruby eyes rolling.

“I’m not the one you need to be apologizing to.”

I swallow. “You’re…not mad?”

His lips thin in a mockery of a smile. “Oh, I’m madder than a one-legged valkerax. I just don’t like to go around showing it.”

My unheart stings. “I should’ve told you I’m a—”

“I could give a horseshit if you’re a Heartless, or a witch, or the Old God himself,” he interrupts me. “I’m a beneather who lives in the upworld—I know what it’s like to be different. It’s not the fact you’re a Heartless I’m mad about. It’s the fact you messed with Lucien’s head. You gave him false hope. And that’s something I can’t forgive.”

I chew my lip and nod, all the words I wanted to say stolen from me. He’s right. I did give Lucien false hope, didn’t I? I forced my way into his life, promised love when I couldn’t give it. Malachite’s anger is righteous, deserved, and it’d be selfish and pathetic to try to beg for his trust again. Words can only speak so much louder than actions. My stomach curdles, harder this time, the pain no longer able to be ignored. I turn on my heel and start to walk away when his slightly raised voice stops me.

“He’s left out the back way in his all-leather getup. If you’re quick, you can catch him in the common quarter. Fleshhouse Avenue.”

I whirl on my heel, my unheart spasming wildly. “Thank you!”

He’s out of the palace. I can approach him.

I dash down the hall and back to the palace entrance. My eyes search for the black carriage of Y’shennria, for Fisher who should be driving it, waiting for me with his large ears and scarecrow body. But he’s gone. All the carriages parked here are waiting for their respective nobles at the banquet.

It’s strange, that such small things can make one feel so alone. Walking down the palace steps without a carriage waiting for me, I feel unmoored. Out of place. There’s no one for me in Vetris anymore. No safe house to go back to. No allies. Two weeks ago I still had Y’shennria and her household. And now I have no one.

abandoned, the hunger insists. abandoned by everyone.

I lift my head, wait for an opening in the guard patrols, and dart off into the hot night. The cicadas are the only ones who cry when I am gone.

Vetris’s Fleshhouse Avenue is always alive, even during funerals, holy days, and especially during brewing wars. It never closes, never observes silence, because unlike jewelry or shoes or swords, human comfort is always needed. The fleshhouses exist in defiance of all Vetris’s suffocating religion and decorum, and maybe that’s why I feel a little freer here, even if the hawkers sitting outside shout me down as I pass or the customers give me a leery eye every few steps. The objectification is a double-edged sword; uncomfortable and yet comforting in the sense I’m one of the masses here—not the exception. Not a noble or a Heartless but just a girl. Reduced to my barest parts, reduced to what I’ve always wanted to be. Just a human girl.

I crane my head and search each house’s facade desperately for any scrap of dark leather or a tall, proud frame. Prince Lucien’s got to be here, dressed in his “all-leather getup,” which means he’s roaming the streets as Whisper, the enigmatic thief who steals from the rich and gives to the poor. I scoff as I scan the crowd for him, remembering how trite I used to think he was for it. How privileged I was back then, that I could ever consider helping people “trite.”

There—on the doorstep of a three-story house. A young man in skin-fitting leather armor, a black cloak over him, emerges from the doorway arm-in-arm with a beautiful, smiling girl in a lace dress. My courage ship springs a sudden hole, leaking everywhere. What am I doing, stalking him like this? He’s hired a fleshworker, obviously. He’s moving on. This is his business. And I have no right being a part of it anymore.

Come now, Zera. You’re better than this. Not much better, but still. At least say sorry to him tonight. And then you can nurse your silly, immature jealousy alone.

I squeeze my fists and march toward the two of them, my unheart in my throat and my mouth bone-dry. I push closer and closer. The girl is so beautiful it’s almost hard to look at her—sweet and unassuming, with bright red curls and a round face. She’s human, all human. They’re talking so openly, Lucien nodding from time to time, his elbow firmly laced with hers. He’s free to do anything with whom he wishes. I know that.

tear them apart, the hunger hisses. eat them together.

I somehow finally get close enough to hear the beautiful girl speak.

“…don’t need that much. But the matron can’t afford it—not on top of the polymath bills, too.”

“Chillsbane, sleeping draughts, and pain relievers,” I hear Lucien’s voice rumble behind his cowl. “All right. I can manage that.”

The girl’s green eyes light up. “Really?”

He nods. “Really.”

Chillsbane is a medicine. They’re talking about medicine? There’s a blur of lace as the girl hugs him tightly. He says something to her, too soft for me to hear, and then she minces back through the crowd and disappears inside the fleshhouse again. My first mistake was watching her go—when I turn back to Lucien, he’s gone, a gap in the crowd where darkness used to be. Everyone’s packed so tightly in this small avenue, and the heat of the day hasn’t gone anywhere with the setting sun. I sweat and swivel my head madly.

“New Gods’ tit,” I wipe my eyes and mutter, the crowd all looking the same. “It shouldn’t be this easy to lose someone that tall.”

“And yet you continually surprise us all by managing it somehow.”

I jump, the deep voice directly behind me as I whirl and come face-to-face with Lucien, his midnight eyes glaring out of his cowl with such brimstone, I almost stagger back. Say it, Zera. Say it now, before he can walk away or shut you out—

I gulp down muggy summer air. “Lucien, I’m sor—”

His eyes harden to stone (he learned that from Varia; I can see the similarities now) as his hand darts out and captures my wrist. “You’ll be useful. Come with me.”

I’m dreaming. I have to be. Except the warmth around my wrist is no phantasmal faceless man’s, it’s Lucien’s—attached to his arm, his broad shoulder, his strong neck as he leads me out through the crowd of Fleshhouse Avenue and into Butcher’s Alley. He’s touching me, willingly, when I never thought he would again. It’s simple and small and nothing and yet my body is singing with it. Our cloaks swirl behind us, streamers of blue and black as we bruise across the night.

“Where—” I sidestep a spouting watertell and the courier who rushes over to it. “Where are we going?”

The prince doesn’t say anything, his strides lengthening, and I have to jog to keep up. I should tear his hand off my wrist, but it feels so good to be touched. By anyone.

By him especially.

fool. there is no point. The hunger sneers. he will never trust you again. we are the predator and he is the prey—

“Lucien,” I start. “I want—I want to apologi—”

His other hand abruptly covers my mouth, and he pulls me down behind a line of crates. The feel of his smooth palm against my lips—I swallow hard. A wrongness consumes me, hot and uneasy. I’m the monster, and he’s the prince, and he knows that, he saw that, so why…?

I give a massive squirm, but he holds me fast, his arms tight around my body. My unheart clenches into itself, my skin buzzing like a wasp’s nest.

“Quiet,” he growls in my ear. “I didn’t bring you here to talk. I brought you here to help me steal. Listen to what I say, and mayhap I’ll find it in my heart that you wanted so much to return the favor.”

Is that all I have to do? I nod frantically, and he releases every part of me, disappointment lingering where his skin used to be. I let it roll off and catch my breath, watching him peer between the cracks in the crates at what must be his target. When my nerves settle, I look between a crack to see a barrel-laden carriage being unloaded by scores of heavily muscled men. They hoist the barrels into a nearby house, a few lawguards watching their progress.

“A stockpile,” Lucien answers my unsaid question. “The royal stockpile, to be more accurate. A royal polymath comes here to check inventory, quality, and to make sure none of it is poisoned, and then they send everything off to the palace.”

“All of that,” I marvel. “Just for you four?”

“Keeping an aging king on the throne requires a lot of supplements—most of them completely unneeded and overly expensive,” Lucien scoffs. “Thankfully, there’s some actual medicine included in there, too.”

I had an inkling earlier, but now it makes perfect sense. He was seeing what medicines that fleshworker needed as Whisper, not soliciting her as Lucien. Gods, jealousy is a terrible beast that makes clever people so dull. Is this why the bards warn of it so often? I make a solemn pact between myself and I to throw over a cliff the fact I was ever naive enough not to see the truth. Preferably a cliff with a pack of hungry wildcats at the bottom to be rid of the evidence.

I shake myself out and clear my throat. “The last time I checked, Your Highness, the Midnight Gifter didn’t gift medicines to fleshhouses.”

“Neither did he wear underclothes,” Lucien says. “Characters from books don’t tend to make a lot of sense in a real world context. Now, talk less and distract more.”

He motions to the burly line of men, and I stifle a groan.

“Why can’t I be the one who does the neat, stealthy things?”

“Because you’re the only one currently wearing a dress,” the prince says.

“I bet you’d look lovely in a dress.” My mouth fires out the jab faster than I can take it back. Something like a smirk quirks at his lips, but I must be imagining it, because it’s gone in the next blink. He’s giving me this one chance and I joke with it? What is wrong with me?

He wants a grand distraction? Fine. I’ll give him a grand distraction—so grand he’ll have to listen to my hours-long apology. I ignore the stabbing pain in my stomach from the few bites of banquet food and bunch up my hem to tear it—an easy enough feat, considering how fine and old the fabric is. Lucien watches me with deadpan boredom as I smear cobblestone dirt on my face, but when I start pinching and twisting my cheeks, he quirks one eyebrow.

“Not the dirty beggar act, then?” he asks.

“Nay.” I rummage in a nearby garbage pile for the glinting empty bottle I’d spotted there. I shake it at him slightly and smirk. “Something far better.”

Before he can ask, I stand up from our hiding place and start staggering wildly toward the men, a bawdy song I’d heard a drunkard singing last night from the carriage brewing in my throat.

“Seven men they caught the baker’s eye, and seven men they made her sigh, then seven men they came to play, and seven men ate pie that day—”

The barrel line goes quiet, pauses in its motion, and all the men look me up and down suspiciously. The lawguards descend, knitting around me in a tight circle.

“Whoa there, this area is off-limits!” one of them insists.

I squint up at him. “Whaddaya sayin’? This…” I gesture wildly at the house they’re going into. “This iz my house! You…you tin men are telling me I can’t go in muh own house?”

The lawguards give one another a look, the “better deal with this quick before our superiors hear about it” look. The men unloading the barrels are still, wary, as if they’re unsure they should keep working.

“Turn around now, miss, and leave,” another lawguard insists, his bushy mustache twitching as I lurch toward him.

“Miss? Miss? Do I look like a miss to ya?” I stagger into the lawguard on my left. He reflexively pushes me away, and I throw a sloppy punch with no power to it, nearly falling over with the momentum. The lawguards push me back, away from the house. “I’m a ma’am! I’m married…I’m married, you shiny bastards! To a pig of a man! An’ he’s in that house, waitin’ for his stew! He’s as big as a badger and as mean as a mountain, and if he doesn’t get his stew I’m gone for. A doner.” I sniff dramatically, blearing my eyes. “If he hits me, you’re his fault!”

Lucien’s dark outline appears from between the carriage railings, his eyes searching the barrel labels. The working men are beginning to get antsy.

“Ma’am.” The lawguard to my right looks thoroughly chastened. “You’re drunk, and you’ve got the wrong house—”

“What are ya talkin’ about?” I flail, two of the lawguards having to hold me back at this point. “That’s him!” I point at a random man in the line, a barrel clutched to his chest. “What in Kavar’s name are you doin’ out here workin’? What about the kids? You’re just gonna leave them to rot in there?”

The man’s face goes slack and white, his mouth gaping like a fish. “Wha— What are you—?”

I cling to the lawguard, the pain of the food twisting my insides. Kavar’s tit. I don’t have much time.

“Is this your wife?” one of the lawguards asks. The man starts to shake his head, and I lunge for his shirt.

“How could ya, ya oily sack of horse dung!” I scream. “How could ya leave them alone in there—?”

“I have no idea what she’s talking about!” the man protests. “I’ve never seen her in my—”

The pain is piercing now, drilling through my skull. I make a lurch and a gurgling noise not entirely within my control, and the man instantly tries to pull away. I keep my grip hard, and he flounders, the two of us sprawling backward into the line of working men. Barrels go flying, swears and limbs whizzing past my ear. The scrambling commotion bleeds chaos—enough chaos that I hope Lucien can steal what he needs to. There’s a moment where the lawguards try to drag me off toward the back of the carriage, but it’s that same moment my eyes tear up, hot with blood. I can’t let them see that, but I have to keep the distraction up.

I do the only thing I excel at—make believe. I make a lurching gulp and then the wettest, most convincing retching noises anyone’s ever heard. I’ll be the first to admit—not my most elegant moment, but perhaps my most successful, because the lawguards recoil in disgust even though nothing’s there, bouncing off one another as they try to avoid what they think is potential vomit. The man I accused of being my husband—Kavar bless his heart—is a sensitive thing, and starts vomiting for real, right onto the nearest lawguard. His friends try to console him, the lawguards try to get to their own feet again without touching him unduly, and I take the moment and slip back out of the alley as fast as my bleeding eyes allow.

Five streets, four squares—I run until I’m out of breath, until they’d have to sprint to find me, and duck behind a hefty cluster of dye vats. The smell is horrible, like aged mulch and rot. No one will come looking for me here.

“I asked for a distraction, not a mistake.”

I look up at the terse voice, only to see Lucien standing there. Did he follow me? His gaze parses over my face, my blood tears. Old God’s gaping mouth—now’s not the time to remind him I’m a Heartless. It will never be the time.

I wipe at my cheeks frantically with my sleeves. “Mistake?” I start. “So you didn’t get the medicine, then?”

“Do you have any idea how many people could’ve seen those blood tears?” In one fell swoop he’s kneeling beside me, voice burning. “My people are fearful, but they aren’t dense. Everyone inside this godsdamn wall knows what it means to cry blood! The temple warns about it, the children sing about it, and you just did it! In front of who knows how many!”

concern for a relic of the past is unbecoming of you, sir prince, the hunger taunts. The hunger is right. I’m his past. Not his future.

I throw my hair back over my shoulder, gold on blue. “Did you get the medicine or not?”

His brows carve deep against the cowl. “They could know what you are! They could be marching lawguards all over the city looking for you right now!”

I breathe deep. I have to take his focus off me. He’s moving backward, when he needs to face the truth and move forward. I am a traitor. Closure will help him, and apologies are a good place to start. I need to apologize while I still have the chance. In a blink he could be gone, entrenched in the court again. Beyond my reach.

“I’m sorry, Lucien.” I meet his gaze squarely. “I’m sorry for not telling you what I—”

“Save your apologies,” he snarls, his hand darting out and enveloping my own. His fingers are so incredibly warm. “We have to go. If they know what you are…”

He stands, pulling me up with him, but before he can start off, I rip out of his grip. That one movement takes everything in me—to move away from his concern instead of toward it, like every inch of my skin desires.

“If—” I steady my voice. “If the people of Vetris discover a Heartless in their midst, if they tie her up, if they burn her alive—it would not do for the prince of Cavanos to care about it.”

I pray to both gods he understands. There’s a beat. And then…

“It would not do,” he agrees, his fury muting to something low and soft.

My breath punctures out of me like a pierced bubble. Of course he understands. It’s obvious to anyone with two whits of court knowledge the prince should not care for a traitor.

“But I wouldn’t be able to help it,” he adds.

My head snaps up. “What?”

The sound of approaching lawguards rings loud in my ears, clanking metal and shouted orders, and in a blink Lucien pulls me in to him, into the shadows behind the dye vats and away from the light. The world fades; I forget the smell of the vats, the blood trails that must be on my cheeks. His every ridge is pressed against mine—our hips digging into each other’s, our chests flush and breathing hard. I look up, our faces so close I could count the dark eyelashes around his strangely amused gaze.

“I can’t help but pity you, Lady Zera.”

It feels like the cobblestones fall away from my feet. A sick coldness rises up in their place.

“I pitied you when we met at the Welcoming,” he says lightly, a sigh on the end. “An Y’shennria, without status or parents, being offered as a plaything. Someone as sharp as you didn’t deserve to be made a pawn of the marriage game.”

If he pities me, why is he holding me so close? Why was he so worried about people seeing my blood tears not moments before?

“Pity?” My voice shakes. Memories of our dance in the street parade, our faces so close in the tavern beneath his cloak, his hand in mine and his head on my shoulder as he shed tears for his lost sister. “Not all of it was pity.”

“Of course not.” The prince chuckles, the sound so at odds with my coldly burning body. “Only most of it.”

The coldness hardens in my stomach like a pit of ice.

“After a few days of deep introspection, I’ve come to realize: I was infatuated with you because I pitied you. You tried so hard to make me love you, and I pitied you for your efforts. I pitied how alone you were in court, how ignorant you were, how terribly everyone thought of you because you were an Y’shennria. Somewhere along the way, it became affection. But an affection based in a sickly soil can never bloom into a true flower; it can never bloom into true love.”

I swallow what feels like metal shavings, scraping my throat on the way down.

“Oh.” He laughs softly, hollowly, keeping his mouth by my ear. “Don’t look so troubled, Lady Zera. You and I both know it’s true. It was only two weeks. What sort of love is ever true after only two weeks? We were infatuated, and nothing more.”

His thoughts mirror mine, the truth like needles piercing any joy I held secretly.

“And yet,” he says, “emotions aren’t convenient pieces of jewelry you can put on and take off whenever you want to.”

What does that even mean? That the things we shared can’t be removed from memory?

’twould be easy enough to reach around and take his eyes out, the hunger offers, salivating. that will make him despise you, for certain.

Varia had a fresh raw pig liver waiting for me, sequestered beneath the banquet dress in her room, but still the hunger keens. I try to remind it his death doesn’t mean our heart anymore, but the darkness unfurls whenever our skin brushes together, like it’s been trained to react with violent thoughts to his scent, his feel. The sound of the lawguards approaching crescendos beyond our hiding place, and I feel Lucien’s arms tighten around me, his mouth just near my ear. The feel of his breath on my skin chokes me more than the muggy summer air, making my whole body tremble.

“You’re shaking.” His tone is low, despondent. “How could you be so good at fooling the court yet so terrible at hiding your own feelings?”

He’s acting so incredibly different—so light, and amused, and unaffected. I’d seen him do this once before, to the other Spring Brides, the ones he treated kindly just for show, just to keep the court off his back. The farce is lifted, gone. He’s supposed to return to his life before me, before my facade. He’s never truly happy when he looks at me, and he deserves to be happy.

The red moonlight blazes off the lawguards’ armor as they pass us—clanking so incredibly loudly—and then disappear, fading behind a street corner. I arch my back against Lucien’s chest in a bid to make space between us.

“What feelings?” I ask.

“That is the question, isn’t it?” He releases me just enough that I can turn in his arms, and I spin to face him. “You never answered me in the clearing.”

“I told you—you’re naive,” I bark. “I deceived you—”

“Everyone I’ve ever met has deceived me,” he interrupts me. “That is what it means to be a d’Malvane. You deceived me. And I pitied you. In the end, I’d call that a draw, wouldn’t you?”

“We kissed,” I blurt, my mouth running by itself. “You and I—that kiss in the tent. Did that mean nothing to you?”

He leans in suddenly, smiling, a shadow filled with heat and draped in leather, his hands slipping onto either side of my face. It’s a farce. He treats people well only when he despises them; the Spring Brides proved that. I swear there’s a blink of genuine feeling in his eyes, but then it disappears.

“How can something that was a lie mean anything at all?”

Not like this. I want the real Lucien. Not this one.

“Don’t you dare treat me like everyone else,” I demand. Lucien’s obsidian eyes flicker, the pleasant facade of his nearly crumbling. He drops his hands slowly, reaching into his pocket and procuring a kerchief in his palm, dark blue with red rose embroidery. To clean my face of blood? His black eyes are hard and set with determination as they were the first time we met—him as Whisper, the two of us in an alley not much different from this one.

“Why not?” He tilts his head, a smile carving an impression beneath his cowl. “After all, you treated me like a job.”

His words stab right through my tender parts, and my lungs instinctually suck in a bracing breath of air. He ignores it, still that placid, unreal smile on his face as he offers his handkerchief.

“You were the only one who managed to get beneath my armor. I’d ask you to be gentle with me, until I can construct a new set,” he says, dropping the kerchief around my hand. “But I know you despise obeying your crown prince.”

I barely catch the kerchief before it hits the ground, and when I manage to look up again, he’s gone.

My body aches with the aftermath of the blood tears and the blunt force of Lucien’s emotional stabbing. I wipe my face carefully with the kerchief. He was right to be so brutal. Emotions aren’t jewelry, he’d said. But they are. I’d put some very convincing jewels on to deceive him—rubies of love, emeralds of affection. What remained when I took them off, that night in the clearing?

Me. Just me.

The monster, the girl, the killer, and the liar in her bare flesh.

undeserving of life, let alone love.

He held me so close. He touched me so tenderly. But he did it because I’m like everyone else in his eyes. I deceived him, like everyone else in the court does.

I am nothing special to him any longer.

Faintly, I hear another commotion start in the street—the lawguards shouting about a “fugitive thief” in “dark leather.” They barrel past my hiding place and to the next square over. Lucien’s lingered in the streets of Vetris for years—he knows better than to get caught. So why would he purposely flaunt himself in front of lawguards now?

My thief brain hands me the answer neatly; with the guards gone, it’s a clear shot from where I am to the noble-quarter bridge. My Heartless brain answers me painfully:

He pities me.