He stares, unblinking, with no reaction. My heart beats once. Twice. Three times.
“Not safe.”
His words are short, curt, and delivered with absolute certainty. I press my lips together and shift my weight. His eyes track my motion without comment.
“That’s not your decision.”
No response. Not even the subtle recalibration I’d noticed before. It’s like the words don’t register as something that matters. My heart rate is still high. I swallow, blink slowly, then try again, going for a different tactic.
“They’re going to come looking for me,” I say. “A lot of them. You don’t want to be here when they do.”
Nothing. Not a flicker of concern. No shift in posture. If anything, his focus sharpens, like I just confirmed something instead of warning him. I exhale slowly. That didn’t work, so I try a different angle.
“If they find you?—”
“They won’t.”
Flat. Certain. I stop. There are tells in that. He’s not defensive about it; it’s just a statement.
“You don’t know that.”
He stares for a long, silent moment before speaking. Unblinking, unmoving, so preternaturally still it’s unnerving. He’s thin for a Zmaj, malnourished. Those awful scars layered on top of each other tell a story too horrific to be conceived.
“I do.”
There’s no arrogance or guesswork in his tone. It’s a calculation. He’s already run that scenario and dismissed it. I glance at the thin light filtering through the ceiling then back to him.
“Even if they don’t find you,” I say, quieter now, “I can’t stay here.”
That shifts something. It’s subtle, but there. A subtle tightening of his shoulders, a rustle of his wings, a twitch of his tail.
Recalculation. Good. Finally something I can work with.
I step forward, not toward the exit, just closing the distance between us by a fraction. I’m testing his reactions. Trying to understand. Gathering data so I can figure out what to do next. He doesn’t move, so I hold.
“Then we go back,” I say.
It’s simple and logical. The only solution that makes sense, but his response is immediate.
“No.”
He doesn’t say it harshly or loudly, just final. I let out a short breath, something between frustration and disbelief.
“You’re not listening.”
“I am.”
He says it softly and sounds so sincere for a second that I think he means it. That he actually believes he understands what I’m saying. But if he does, then that’s worse. Because then this isn’t some mistake, it’s a plan, but for what?
“Then you’re choosing not to understand,” I say.
His head tilts, but I don’t see confusion, there’s something else. He moves, not toward me or away, past me.
He shifts fast enough that I feel the air move before I register what he’s doing. One step, then another, placing him at an angle that changes the entire space again. My pulse ticks up.
“What are you doing?”
He doesn’t answer. His attention has shifted toward the slope, toward the thin points in the ceiling where light leaks through. He’s listening and the stillness changes. A beat passes, then another, and then?—
