Keegan’s thumb stilled on my knuckles. “That’s her art. Making the world feel smaller until her hand seems like the only shelter.”
My birthmark warmed into a low, steady pulse.
I looked at the fire, then at the kettle in the kitchen, where it had already cooled slightly because we’d forgotten it existed.
I brought my eyes back to Keegan, and his gaze held mine a beat longer than it needed to, just long enough for that familiar flutter to spark under my ribs.
His mouth softened into the smallest smile, the one he gave when he was trying to make the world gentler for me without pretending it was.
“We should reheat the tea,” he said.
“Reheating tea is a crime,” I told him automatically.
He huffed something like laughter. “So is walking into a Priestess’s compound alone.”
I watched him walk into the kitchen to remake our tea…this man who carried violence in his bones and tenderness in his hands, who could become a wolf and still somehow feel more human than most humans I’d known.
Maybe that was the whole point.
Keegan brought the mugs back warmer this time, and when he sat again, he held my hand and didn’t let go.
“Tomorrow,” he said quietly, “we plan. We talk to the people we trust. We gather what we know. We make her work for every inch.”
I nodded, eyes on the steam curling up from the mug.
“And tonight?” I asked.
He looked at me, and something in his gaze softened again, careful and real.
“Tonight,” he said, “we let the cottage hold you for a few hours. We rest. We listen. And we don’t hand her a victory just because you’re tired.”
I stared at him, and the flutter in my chest steadied into something stronger.
“Okay,” I whispered.
The cottage had settled around us fully now. The fire in the hearth burned low but steady, light flickering over the old beams and the shelves lined with jars and bundled herbs. Somewhere in the walls, the faintest whisper of magic hummed. It wasn’t the Academy’s wide, watchful awareness, but something older and smaller. A hearth-keeper kind of magic. A stay-awhile magic.
It wrapped around my shoulders without asking.
Keegan leaned back into the couch, and I rested my head against his shoulder.
“We’ll speak to Nova in the morning,” he said. “And Karvey again. Caleb.”
I nodded. “And the orcs. We need to compare what they’re sensing in the stone.”
“We will.”
I stared into the fire, listening to the quiet crackle of wood, the small pop of sap. My body was tired in a way that had nothing to do with sleep. It was the exhaustion of holding steady for other people, of being the hinge.
Keegan’s thumb traced a slow line over my knuckles.
“You don’t have to carry it alone,” he murmured.
“I know.”
I did. I knew, but knowing and feeling are two entirely different creatures.
I turned toward him, and this time I didn’t look away when I caught his eyes on me. They were darker in the firelight, steady and searching like he was waiting for me to flinch first.
