“Of a future.” His face tilted to the stars, and then we were both staring upward. The starscape burned impossibly bright and vast above us. A strange reminder of open space when we were walled in by a few feet of hedge.
I understood what Dorian meant. Even Thalassa, trapped forhundreds of years in this place, needed a reason to go on. Every creature who could conceive of a future needed that.
“What’s your promise?” I asked.
For a long time, he said nothing, and I thought he wouldn’t at all. That would be like him. But eventually he pulled out the nearly empty sack of rabbit meat from his belt and handed it to me. “Keeping you fed.”
I accepted it with both hands. Across from me, Dorian’s face was once again upturned to the sky, the column of his neck long and not inelegantly wide. Days ago, I had found him strange, even ugly. Now he just looked like Dorian.
How quickly the strange became familiar.
There was nothing else to say. I ate in silence. I spread my cloak and sword for dew. And when I lay down to sleep, I dreamed again of the maze.
In the night,Dorian once again wrapped himself around me—after I’d fallen asleep, after the cold had become too much. But this time when I woke, he hadn’t risen before me. His deep breathing stirred the hair by my ear. One arm lay heavy across my waist, and as I opened my eyes to the tint of dawn I saw his fingers twitching in sleep.
I must have been shivering during the night, but I couldn’t recall.
For a long while I lay still, watching his fingers. His words echoed back from last night:Keeping you fed.He had given up food and water so I could eat first. He had kept watch until I fell asleep.
And in moments like this, I felt like deadweight. If I were fae, I might have been his equal. But I wasn’t. I was human. And that meant he carried the burden of my hunger, my thirst, my fragility.
Eventually the sunlight grew stronger, painting the hedge in pale golds and greens. His breathing shifted.
He didn’t move at first. Neither did I.
I half-turned my face. “So monsters can dream.”
He didn’t answer. His arm slipped away, and he sat up, leaving my back cold.
I pushed myself upright. For once, I hadn’t meant it like that. “What were you dreaming of?”
He rubbed a hand over his face, shoulders tense. “I don’t remember my dreams.”
I turned toward him. “Not ever?”
“Not for some time.” He kept his back to me. Last night felt like an anomaly, a moon’s break in our iciness. Now, even with the sun on us, I felt cold. “Meat’s gone,” he said.
I sat up, hugging my knees. My cloak lay on the dirt with my sword across it, beaded in dew. The blade caught the light; there was more water than I’d expected.
“So that’s it for food,” I said.
“That’s it.” He dusted off his pants and stood. “Now we’ll have to forage. Or kill.”
“Thornstalkers?”
“Whatever we encounter.” His eyes met mine, just for a moment. “I’ll do the killing, if it comes to that.”
I got on my knees and poured our collected dew into his canteen. “I’ll do the collecting.” When I handed it to him, he corked the canteen and swirled it. His face was strained, his movements slow. “Dorian.”
He set the canteen at his belt. Another flinch. “What?”
“Let me check your stitches.”
“It’s a waste of?—”
“I saw your movements yesterday. I see you this morning. If you think you can fool me because I have inferior eyesight, you’re mistaken.” I stepped closer. “Let me keep us alive, too.”
He met my eyes now, his stare unbroken. His jaw ticked, then he nodded.
