“Tavrin.”
“Could.” He said it again, more firmly. “Not. Will.”
“You don’t know that.”
He reached out. His hand found my face, burning hot, trembling. I leaned into it despite myself.
“Yours,” he said. “She is. Yours. So.” He pressed his other hand to his chest. “Mine. Protect.”
“She’s not your responsibility.”
His lips twisted into something dangerously close to a pout.
“You are. Mine.” Each word deliberate. Certain. “What is. Yours. Is mine. Same thing.”
“That’s not how it works.”
“Is now.”
I caught his hand. Held it against my face. Felt the heat of him searing into my palm.
“You’d really do that? Risk everything for my sister?”
He made a soft sound. Reached up and touched my face with his other hand, cupping my jaw.
“Already. Risk. Everything.” His thumb traced my cheekbone. “For you. Already decided. Long ago.” A pause. “This is. Just. More of you. To protect.”
I stared at him. This creature who could barely speak, barely stand, who had shed a trail of feathers just walking down a hallway. Who was offering to fly into danger for a girl he’d never met, because she mattered to me.
“We’d need a plan,” I said slowly. “Uncle’s house has guards at night. Not many, but enough. He drinks after dinner and passes out around midnight. Elspeth’s room is on the second floor, east corner. The window sticks but I could get it open from outside if you could get me up there.”
He was watching me with something like wonder. Like he hadn’t expected me to pivot so fast.
“I know that house. I know which floorboards creak. I know where the servants sleep. I know how to get in and out without being seen.” Those years of honing my survival instincts, watching. Waiting. “You can’t go inside. You’re too big, too obvious, and if you lose control in there...”
He nodded. He understood.
“You get me to the window. I go in, get Elspeth, bring her out. You carry us both back.” The plan taking shape. “If something goes wrong, if uncle wakes up or the guards come, you’re the backup. Only if I need you. Only if there’s no other way.”
Another nod. He swayed on his feet and I grabbed his arm, steadying him.
“When?” he managed.
“You need to rest.” I said it before he could argue. “You can barely stand. If we leave now, you’ll drop us both into the mountains.”
He wanted to fight me. I could see it in his face. But his legs were shaking, and we both knew I was right.
“Tomorrow night,” I said. “We fly down slow, save your strength. I go in quiet, get Elspeth, get out. No confrontation. No walls coming down.”
“How. Long.”
“Inside? Twenty minutes. Maybe less if she’s awake.”
He shook his head. Held up ten fingers.
“Ten minutes isn’t enough. I need time to explain, to get her dressed, to make sure she doesn’t scream when she sees you waiting outside.”
He considered this. Held up ten fingers again, then five more.
