Beauty immediately stopped clinging to the jacket, confusion smoothing into complete and horrible understanding.
"You're Librian," she said, and her voice was very still and very quiet. "You..." She looked down at the black fabric in her hands. He'd fought against the revolution. Ex-partner. Errol? And why did she have John Preston's jacket?
Very carefully, as if it were a dangerous creature, she set the jacket down beside her on the couch. Her eyes slid past the man and to the door -- too far away, and he was between it and her. She could run into her library, but there was no way out of that tower save the windows.
Beauty swallowed and looked back at John again. "Why are you here?" she finally asked. And because she had to know, she had to know, "Did you hurt him?"