Yet here I sit, counting down minutes like some lovesick fool.
The room is sweltering, the volcanic heat wrapping around me like a second skin, thick and oppressive, carrying the scentof eucalyptus and sage through the humid air. I've been here for twenty minutes already, stripped down to nothing but the loose linen pants I wear for these sessions, my slate-gray skin absorbing the heat while the crystalline tracery beneath pulses with a steady, healthy glow. My left shoulder blade is stiff—not locked, not calcified, just tight with a dull ache that radiates down my spine and into the base of my wing joint.
Manageable. Tolerable.
Not the reason I'm here.
I close my eyes and exhale slowly, forcing myself to acknowledge the truth I've been avoiding for the past three weeks: the petrification isn't why I keep coming back. She is. Because of the way she climbs onto this table without hesitation, her small hands pressing into my back with a confidence that shouldn't exist in someone so fragile, scolding me like I'm a disobedient child, her voice sharp and unapologetic, completely unbothered by the fact that I could crush her with one hand if I chose to. Because of the way she makes me feel lighter—not physically, but somewhere deeper, in a place I thought had calcified long ago.
And I'm terrified of what that means.
Eleven fifty-seven.
I open my eyes and stare at the door, my chest tight with an anticipation I can't suppress. Three more minutes. The rational part of my mind—the part that's kept me alive for over eight hundred years—tells me this is dangerous, that I'm allowing myself to become dependent on a human, that I'm compromising my carefully constructed emotional defenses for the sake of temporary relief.
But the rest of me—the part that's been slowly waking up over the past three weeks—doesn't care.
Because when she touches me, the mineral death doesn't just ease.
It disappears.
Completely.
For the first time in centuries, I can move without pain, can extend my wings without feeling the grinding calcification in my joints, can breathe without the crushing weight of petrification pressing down on my chest.
And when she leaves, the cold returns.
It's not the biological failure that used to plague me—not the calcification spreading through my musculature. It's the absence of her warmth, the absence of her presence, the absence of the sharp, sarcastic commentary that somehow manages to cut through the suffocating silence of my existence.
I'm becoming addicted to her.
And I hate it.
Eleven fifty-eight.
The door handle turns.
I don't move, remain seated on the edge of the table with my posture rigid and my expression carefully neutral. I won't let her see how much I've been waiting. I won't give her that power.
The door swings open.
Tamsin steps inside.
She's wearing black leggings and a faded gray hoodie with the sleeves pushed up to her elbows, her dark hair pulled back into a messy bun secured with what appears to be a ballpoint pen. There are faint shadows under her eyes, and her skin has a dull, exhausted pallor that wasn't there three weeks ago.
She looks tired.
She looks like she hasn't slept in days.
And she looks absolutely unbothered by my presence.
"Hey," she says, kicking the door shut behind her. She drops her bag on the supply station and immediately starts stripping off her hoodie. "Sorry I'm late. Traffic was a nightmare."
She's not late. She's exactly on time. But I don't correct her.
"Good evening," I say.
She glances at me, one eyebrow raised. "Good evening? What are you, a Victorian butler?"
