“You had four cups.” K settles onto the other pallet, watching me in a way that makes my skin tingle. “Perhaps five.”
“Are you counting my drinks now?”
“I am monitoring your well-being.” He says it so seriously that I can’t tell if he’s joking. “You are still recovering.”
“From what? The crash that should’ve killed me but miraculously didn’t?” I wave a hand vaguely. “I’m fine. Better than fine. I feel good.”
And I do. For the first time in days—maybe weeks, if I’m honest with myself—the constant anxiety has loosened its grip. The wine helped. The laughter helped. The simple act of being surrounded by people who weren’t hunting me or lying to me or expecting me to be something I’m not.
Just… existing. Being Mara. Blue hair and conspiracy theories and all.
“What did Dragana want to speak with you about?” K asks. “Earlier, when she took you aside?”
I try to remember through the pleasant haze. “Oh. That. She mostly just… asked questions.”
“What kind of questions?”
“About why I was in the mountains. What I was doing here. Who I was traveling with.” I pick at a loose thread on the blanket. “Standard interrogation stuff, really. Very ‘village elder protects her people from suspicious outsiders.’”
K’s brow furrows. “And what did you tell her?”
“The truth.” I pause, feeling like a fraud because it’s not. “About the geological survey. That we were documentingmineral deposits, and the helicopter crashed. That you saved my life.”
What I don’t tell him: how Dragana’s eyes sharpened when I mentioned the crash. When I spoke of the others.
How I deflected and dodged and absolutely did not mention dragons.
Because how do you tell someone you were sent on a secret mission to cover up signs of a full-scale supernatural war?
Answer: You don’t.
You smile and nod and change the subject and pray they never find out you’ve been lying the entire time.
“Did she tell you anything useful?” I ask, deflecting. “About who you are? Where you’re from?”
K’s expression darkens. “No. More cryptic warnings about remembering when I am ready. About the past having teeth.” He flexes his hands in frustration. “She knows about me. I am certain of it. But she refuses to speak plainly.”
I think about the paintings in the cave. The massive winged creatures breathing fire. The way K stared at them like he was looking at something both foreign and intimately familiar.
The way Andrei and Nicolae spoke of the old gods with the casual certainty of stating an obvious fact.
Guilt twists in my stomach. I should tell him. Should just rip off the Band-Aid and say:Hey, so, funny story—dragons are real. Like, actual dragons. Wings and fire and centuries-old magical beings. And one of them’s my boss. Surprise!
Except I can’t.
Because I promised Elena and Caleb I’d protect their secret. Promised the Aurora Collective that I’d never expose dragonkind to the world.
Even if keeping that promise means lying to the man who saved my life.
Especially if it means that.
“Maybe she’s right,” I say quietly. “Maybe some things you need to remember on your own.”
K looks at me with an expression I can’t read. “And what if I never remember? What if the darkness remains, and I am left with only fragments and instinct?”
“Then you build a new life.” I meet his eyes. “With what you have now. Who you are now. Not who you were.”
“Is that what you did?” His voice is gentle. “When you felt lost? Build a new life from fragments?”
