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“You’re in my bed.”

Lily looked over the small bench. This was where he’d been sleeping? I barely fit on it. She pushed herself up. “I’m about finished anyway…”

“Take all the time you need. I have errands that will keep me from sleeping tonight,” he droned, rifling through the stack she’d accumulated on Ava’s desk. “While you’re here, maybe you can help me find a certain book…”

Lily rolled her head toward the window. “Here.” She dangled what was in her hand in his direction, and he took it.

“How did you know I have a hard time reading Cera?”

“What does that have to do with any—” Lily’s question caught in her throat as she met his reflection in the glass. She spun back to face him, now at eye level and kneeling beside her. He was close. Close enough to take in his scent—temperate, like petrichor after a wildfire, breath tinged with the spice of alcohol.

“While it was my first language, most of the books I read were in Retian. I may not be proficient in reading the common language, but I do know how to differentiate its text.” He lifted the book to her sight. “This isn’t the one I was looking for, and you know it.”

Lily swallowed, moistening her throat to answer, but nothing, not even a protest or a rebuttal, surfaced. That voice. It stunted her every damn time. She grabbed the book by the spine to take it back, and when she did, his hand fell over hers, so gently he was hardly holding her, but the action itself kept her in place.

His thumb traced over the inside of her wrist, and Lily’s rigidity melted as her hand soaked in the touch. She was always careful to avoid touching anyone without gloves, and those who knew about her influence took care to avoid her hands. It was easy to fall into caresses she never realized she craved before.

“Give me the one I asked for.”

She managed to produce a response to his arrogance despite her heart being lodged in her throat. “Say please first.”

He laughed, the sound vibrating to her core as her gaze wandered to the flex of his jaw, down to the contracting muscles in his neck. Slowly, he leaned closer, and Lily’s rational thinking won over the foolhardy wants of her body. She leaned away until her shoulder pressed into the cold window.

“Please get it for me,” he said.

The book clattered to the floor. She stared at it before tugging her hand away. Get it together! She was blatantly admiring him, and he could see it all! Stammering, Lily fished Ivy’s expensive gift from behind a pillow, trying to will away the burn in her cheeks, begging for it not to travel any lower.

Jarek laughed again, this one softer, but just as smug as the first. “I believe that’s game.”

Lily sealed her lips, nodding while she thrust what he was looking for into his chest to put some clarifying space between them.

Jarek took his time accepting it. When he did, he scrutinized it and tapped a finger on the cover over the word Comprehensive. “This word—it means ‘unbound,’ yes?”

Lily refused to look at him any longer. “It means ‘wide.’ There’s a limit.”

Jarek hummed over the rustle of paper, the pull of the binding leading him to the page she’d opened a dozen times that evening. Lily wriggled off the bench and busied herself with putting back her previous skims.

“Ethae,” he mused, quietly.

Lily chanced a look over her shoulder. He was still kneeling at the bench, studying the book. “Do you know what it is?”

Mumbling the airy sounds of Retian, he flipped to the first, then second page, clicking his tongue against his teeth. “It reminds me of the word aethrea, although that doesn’t say much, considering this is a little beyond my time. Croll may know but will more than likely be as useless as I am.” He glanced at Lily, flicking a hand through the air. “Aethrea is a descriptor for the feeling of unseen energy. Spiritual awareness Valen and those he led tossed aside in favor of a spirituality that catered to his visions.”

Lily’s gaze drifted toward the window.

“Does this have to do with that animal you’ve been seeing?” He glanced at the book again. “This doesn’t fit the description you gave me after leaving the border.”

“Because they’re not the same. Ivy said she sees things like that.” Lily pointed to the book. “Multiples of them. Mine is a single creature that shares similar features. Four front legs, four eye sockets, and it glows. But it’s larger. Much larger.”

“Are you feeling threatened by it?”

A “no” that tasted like a lie danced across her tongue. “I don’t know what it wants. All it’s doing is following me, but it’s getting closer.”

There was a terrible amount of silence before Jarek appeared in her peripheral with the last of what she borrowed in his arms. “I’ll look into it then.”

“That would be”—she cleared her throat—“helpful. Thank you.”

Without another word, he continued what she’d started at her side, and Lily did her best to collect herself, frosting over the heat he kindled when he walked into the room.