How grand that makes him feel. How marvelous. He wants to take it back at once, deny it. Because in spite of everything - in spite of her tears and misery, in spite of his furious arguments that he needed to tell Sonia, that she'd be devastated - he still rather...held onto hope that it wasn't real. Who, after all, gives a damn about him? He's built his entire career on the strength of how inconsequential he is - on his ability to flit into someone's life and back out again without them noticing. His strength as an informant depends entirely on how little anyone gives a damn about him. And that's awlways been okay. He's never given a damn about their indifference. Indeed, he's found it so comfortable - after all, there's rather a lot of pain inherent in betraying a friend to ImpSec, but very little in betraying your dissolute drunken acquaintance. Why the hell would Sonia, a princess, someone who is adored and adoring, someone so vital to people that the entire war might turn on her welfare - why the hell would she care for a useless, sardonic, drunken town fool?

I don't want to be real. He wants to turn into nothing, air and vapor. Become a stone. He wants to scorch off the hands that touched her, cut out the tongue that charmed her. He didn't know he could hurt this bad anymore. He thought he'd grown out of these nerve receptors. Do the haut have some buried bioweapon that might ossify him? He'll throw himself on their mercy if they'd just use it.

"And go where?" His voice is a low rasp. "Where is there to go from there?"