“No. You don’t.” She stood and joined me at the door. “If Brother Tomas finds out what I am, he won’t stop at the river. He’ll drag me back. Make a lesson of me. The last time a woman was caught with the old books, they burned her alive. Not just her, either, but her mother, her daughter, and her maid.”
I didn’t flinch. I’d seen worse, but hearing it from her lips, it was different. It wasn’t history. It was a promise.
She shivered, but not from cold. “My mother, she taught me some of the words. The safe ones. The ones that pass as prayer. She thought—she hoped—if I learned to pretend, it would be enough.”
“Was it?”
“Once,” she said. “But then Brother Tomas came. He looks for the cracks in a person. He found the old books. He called a gathering, and the men took turns with the torch.” Her voice didn’t break, but her nails dug crescents into her palm. “My mother survived. Barely. She never spoke of it again.”
I let the silence draw out, long enough that the wind outside became a presence, pacing the walls.
She looked at me, eyes sharper now. “You don’t have to stay. You could go back to the circle and trees, leave me to it. That would be the safe thing.”
I barked a laugh. “I never cared much for safe.”
She almost smiled, but it faded quickly. “You’re not like the other men. Even the ones from your world.”
I thought of the club, the way we pretended at brotherhood and called it loyalty. “Never fit in,” I said. “They tried to make me a soldier, then a machine, then a ghost. This”—I waved at the room, at her, at the fucking miracle of waking up at all—“this is the first thing that’s made sense in a long time.”
She watched me for a beat, then edged closer, until her bare knee touched mine. “If we stay, if we try to hide, it won’t work. They’ll burn the woods. They’ll drag me back. I can’t survive that twice.”
I knew she was right. I also knew that the alternative, crossing back to my world, dragging her through the stones, trying to explain her to men who’d never understand, was almost as bad.
“We have until the full moon,” she said. “That’s when the circle opens again. I’ve counted the days. Two, maybe three if we’re lucky.”
I tried to picture two more days here. Eleven days of hiding, running, waiting for men with torches and holy water to sniff us out.
“What do you want to do?” I asked, keeping my voice even.
She shook her head, looking down at her hands. “I don’t know. I don’t know your world. I barely know this one. I just—” She bit her lip, hard enough to draw blood. “I’m afraid.”
I reached over, took her hand. The skin was cold, but she didn’t pull away. “You don’t have to decide now,” I said.
She nodded, then leaned her head on my shoulder. We sat like that, pressed together, listening to the slow drip of meltwater from the eaves. The longer we sat, the less I wanted to let her go.
After a time, she whispered, “What is it like? Your world. For a woman.”
I laughed softly. “Depends on the woman.”
She elbowed me, not hard. “Don’t dodge.”
I thought about the women in the club who’d never needed anyone’s permission to take what they wanted. I thought about the mothers I’d known growing up, some broken by the system, some breaking it in turn.
“It’s better than here,” I said, “but not perfect. You can read, you can work. No one burns you for thinking. But you still get hunted in different ways. They just call it other names.”
She considered this. “Do they let you be wild?”
I grinned. “Some of us. Most are too scared. But yeah. If you fight for it, you can make your own place.”
She closed her eyes, breathing deep. I could see the wheels turning, the fight between hope and old fear. I wanted to tell her that I’d protect her, that she’d be safe, but I couldn’t make that promise, not in any world.
Instead, I brushed a lock of hair from her forehead. She looked up at me, a smile starting at the edge of her mouth.
“What if I don’t belong anywhere?” she asked, voice so soft I almost missed it.
I squeezed her hand. “Then we make a place. For both of us.”
She smiled for real this time, and the room got a little warmer.
