He’s looking at me. Those green eyes are even sharper up close, and there’s an intensity to his attention that makes me feel like he’s cataloging everything about me. The mask, the sketchbook, the nervous energy I’m trying to hide.
“Sometimes,” I say.
“What are you working on?”
I tilt the page slightly so he can see—just the rough outline of the emergency exit, nothing impressive. “Passing time.”
He doesn’t push, but he also doesn’t look away. I meet his gaze and feel that old thrill spike through me. The one I thought I’d buried.
“Business or pleasure?” I ask because apparently I’ve lost my mind.
His mouth curves. “Business.”
“Sounds exhausting.”
“It is.” He accepts the whiskey from the flight attendant when she returns, takes a slow sip, then glances at me again. “What about you?”
“Visiting my mother’s grave.”
It’s not entirely untrue. I am saying goodbye to my mother, to the life I had, to any chance of being Aurelia Vance ever again.
His expression shifts. “I’m sorry for your loss.”
“Don’t be. It’s overdue.”
He doesn’t ask what I mean, and I’m grateful for that. The engines roar as we taxi toward the runway, and I grip my pencil tighter, channeling my nervous energy into something productive.
The plane picks up speed. My stomach drops the way it always does during takeoff, but I keep my eyes on the sketchbook and my breathing even.
We’re airborne.
I made it.
I pull the mask down—just enough to take a sip of the water the flight attendant left—and when I glance over, Cassian is watching me again.
“Nervous flier?” he asks.
“Not usually.”
“But today you are.”
It’s not a question, and I don’t bother denying it. “Today’s different.”
“How so?”
I want to deflect, but there’s curiosity in his voice that sounds genuine, and maybe it’s the adrenaline or the fact that he’ll never know who I really am, but I want to tell him the truth.
Part of it, anyway.
“I’m leaving behind a life I never wanted,” I say quietly, my eyes still on the sketchbook. “And I have no idea if I’m going to make it.”
The silence that follows is heavy, but not uncomfortable.
When I finally look at him, his expression has changed. The sharpness is still there, but there’s understanding too, like he knows exactly what it means to run from things that want to destroy you.
“You’ll make it,” he says.
“How do you know?”
