The look in her eyes, that cringing shock, shouldn't give him any satisfaction at all. He's better than this, or has always striven to be, and the fact that he isn't now is a betrayal of all the work he's put in his entire life; the citizen in the world, the gentleman of Lethe, crumbled to nothing in the face of his own jealousy.

"The first time I found you beautiful had nothing to do with what you were or weren't wearing, Alex," he says. "Maybe that's difficult for you to believe, but it's true."