The Darkling's momentum stumbles. Seconds pass while he makes the swift—not swift enough, and regrettably undisguised—progression from confusion to something like comprehension. Anger follows, bleeding in along all the lines of his face, sparking his stare unpleasantly bright. Like liquid his shadow spreads, spills from this tier to the one below, crawls up the balustrade to the one above, begins to consume the empty floor between himself and Ralston. He needn't fix that in his mind to make it so.

"Her name," a quick clenching and relaxing of restraint definitely occurs here, "is Alina."

It's probably a mistake. Ralston remembered it wrong. But amid his loathing for this circumstance and all the little unmanageable pieces of it twists the thought that she might wear his name on purpose; it pinches differently, and he hates that, too.