This is so precisely accurate that I consider suing him for unauthorized access to my internal monologue.
"I contain multitudes," I say instead. "One of those multitudes wants to learn a survival skill."
He straightens, leans on the axe haft, and looks at me for a long moment. He notes the flannel and his nostrils flare, but he doesn't remark on it. Then he sighs, recognizing a lost cause when he sees one.
"One log," he negotiates. "Then you go back inside before you frostbite something I'll have to amputate."
What follows is, in theory, a brief lesson in axe mechanics. That is what's happening, objectively. Butsubjectively, what's happening is that Afon Satyrin steps behind me, close enough that I can feel the furnace of him through two layers of flannel, and closes his hands over mine on the haft. His palms are rough and twice the size of mine. His chest is at my back. His beard grazes my temple when he leans down to correct my grip, and his voice is a sensual purr in my ear.
"Don't swing with your arms," he says. "Let the axe fall. Your job is aim. Gravity does the work."
"Copy that, Sarge."
"Hips square. Eyes on the spot you want to hit, not the spot you're afraid of hitting."
"That's very motivational-poster of you."
"Here we go."
Together, we lift the axe up high and let it fall. The log splits—not cleanly, not like his, more of a reluctant divorce than a guillotine, but itsplits.I whoop, thrilled with myself. Wolf barks in response from inside, where he's cowering out of the cold, that little weenie.
"I did that!" I announce.
"Gravity did that."
"GravityandIdid that. We're a team now."
Afon steps back, and the cold swarms into the space where he was. All the unspoken things seem to be living in that space, too. The kiss, the shared bed, our fingers interlaced.
He takes the axe from my hands—or starts to. My fingers don't release it right away, and so there's a brief period of time where we're both holding the haft, connected by thirty-six inches of hickory.
I make the mistake of looking up at him.
He's already looking at me.
His eyes drop to my mouth and stay there a beat too long to be deniable. The steam rises off his shoulders and tiny ice crystals of condensed breath glisten in the thick expanse of his beard. His dark irises gleam.
As for me, I'm grateful for the flannel I'm drowning in, because it conceals my tightening nipples and fluttering heartbeat. With my hands tucked inside the too-long sleeves, he can't even see how my fingertips are shaking.
"Off you go inside," Afon coughs at last. "Before you get ambitious."
I go. But I take my split log with me, and I set it by the stove like a trophy. If Afon notices that I burn every other piece of wood first and save mine for last, he is gentleman enough not to mention it.
The deal comes due after dinner.
On the menu tonight is venison, seared in the cast-iron pan with salt and gusto. Also, regrettably, a side of beans. I swear he climbed a beanstalk and stole Jack's magic, never-ending supply of the stuff.
We once again eat at the narrow table with our knees touching. The fire is chuckling along merrily. Wolf, full of deer scraps and self-satisfaction, sprawls by the stove and snores. Occasionally, he farts loud enough to wake himself and look around in a confused daze. It's setting quite the mood.
I've been rehearsing how to raise the topic. I'm two breaths from launching into my whole spiel when Afon sets down his post-dinner coffee, looks at me across the lamplight, and says, "You found something on my ribs, didn't you?"
I freeze with my fork halfway to my mouth.
So much for my opening statement. I set the fork down.
"It looked like a swallow," I say carefully. "Mid-dive. Wings swept back. Holding a skeleton key in its beak." My heart is doing thethock-thockthing again. "It's the exact image my father drew at the bottom of his last letter. I spent months trying to identify it. I came up empty."
"Yes," Afon agrees. "It's not in any database, because it was never meant to be found." He rotates his mug a quarter turn on the table. "My brother designed it."
