Oh.
I hesitate for a second, and then reach for his hand.
He tenses for a second as that rush suffuses me again, softer this time, and leaving the same tingles in its wake that I felt when he put the bow in my hair.
And then he grips my hand with quiet strength.
“You’re not a problem,” I tell him firmly. “You’re a person. And I want you to be able to imagine and do whatever you want, too. That’s all.”
His gaze meets mine and holds it.
There’s a fraught moment where I hold my breath, unsure what the next moment will bring.
Our eyes glow at each other, pink and blue.
But I don’t know what I want yet, and I need to decide. I deserve to decide, and he deserves that, too.
I turn my head, showing him the back of it. “Could you fix the bow again, please?”
“Of course.”
Our hands separate like nothing happened. His fingers in my hair are quick and efficient and don’t linger.
But for the remainder of the hike there’s an air between us that’s at once easier and on the edge of possibility.
And Zan tells me the names of the trees.
Chapter 5
Despitethefactthatthe Quiet has fallen, no one approaches the mountain. Zan’s senses are better than a human’s, and he doesn’t hear or smell anyone.
They must not realize yet that they can.
But as we approach the base of the mountain, Zan puts on his own disguise. His blue hair turns black. His eyes become a more normal blue. His skin gains a pink undertone like mine.
The rest is hard to describe. He’s still close to the same shape, and still handsome, but it’s like all his edges have been mildly distorted, softened; flattened. He looks like an attractive human, but the otherworldliness is gone.
Zan arches his brows at my intense study of him. “No longer miraculous?”
Even his voice has lost some of its layers. Remarkable.
I don’t like it.
But in the challenge in his gaze, in his tone, I still see him.
“I still recognize you,” I finally say. “But you look like a lie.”
Zan shrugs. “I am.”
My eyes narrow a fraction. I have the sense I’m meant to take that at face value when he really means something more by it.
But we’re about to be in public, so this isn’t the time to press him.
“Are you ready?” he asks as the trees begin to taper off.
“I don’t know why you keep asking me that,” I say. “Obviously the answer is no, but I’m going to do it anyway.”
Zan glances sidelong at me. “Humans typically react badly when I just pick them up in my claws and drop them somewhere new.”
