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She swallowed hard and tried to ignore the shiver that ran down her spine. “Close enough,” she managed.

He learned fast, frighteningly fast. She had thought it would take days just to get the basics across, pointing at things and saying their names and hoping for the best. It didn’t work that way. She pointed at the water and said “water,” and he repeated it. She pointed at the lamp and said “light,” and he repeated that too. By the time she had worked her way through rock, wall, hand, cold and wet, he wasn’t just repeating the words. He was using them.

“Cold,” he said, and pointed at her. Then he frowned. “Wet. Frrankie cold.”

“Yes,” she said, her teeth chattering. “Frankie is very cold.”

He looked around, as if searching for something. Then he rose to his feet in one smooth, fluid movement that made her lean back against the wall, and she forgot what she had been about to say.

He was naked.

She really should have noticed sooner, but she’d been too busy with his face and his eyes and his tail. He was standing now, and the lamplight showed every long, lean inch of him. There was a thin belt of woven vine slung low around his hips, holding a small pouch at his side, and that was all. The belt didn’t cover anything. Then again, there didn’t seem to be anything to cover. The fine blue-green scales ran smoothly down over his hips and between his thighs, and that was where she made herself stop looking.

Heat rushed up her face so fast that her cheeks burned behind the mask. She looked quickly back up at his face, because that was safer. Except that he was looking down at her with a small, puzzled frown on that strangely attractive face, and she wasn’t sure that was safer at all.

What was wrong with her? She had nearly drowned. She was hopelessly lost and freezing and a very long way from home. This was not the time to be noticing how the muscles in his stomach moved when he breathed. Or how the fine scales gleamed along his shoulders and arms, or how graceful he was.

It’s just been a long time, she told herself. Two years since her last disastrous attempt at a relationship, and six months since she had spoken to any man who wasn’t arguing with her about load specifications. Her body was simply confused.

“Frrankie?” He crouched down in front of her again, his head tilted. “Face change.”

“It’s fine,” she said quickly. “My face is fine. It’s the cold.”

He studied her for a moment longer, with an expression that suggested he didn’t quite believe her. Then he held out his hand, palm up.

“Come,” he said. “Warm.”

She looked at his outstretched hand. It was big and long-fingered, the claws neatly tucked, the thin webbing catching the light. She thought about all the reasons she shouldn’t take it. Then she took it anyway.

His skin was cool and smooth, and his grip was surprisingly gentle. He drew her to her feet as if she weighed nothing and steadied her when her knees wobbled. Then he picked up her lamp, turned it over in his hands, and gave it back to her with an air of great seriousness.

“Light,” he said. “Frrankie.”

“Thank you,” she said, and meant it.

He led her away from the channel along a ledge she would never have found by herself. It wound up through a gap in the rock and along the side of the passage, above the water. It was dry and solid and wide enough for her to walk without clinging to the wall. He went ahead of her, glancing back every few steps to make sure she was still there. Once, where the ledge grew narrow, he reached back without a word and took her hand, and he didn’t let go until the path widened again.

Her hand tingled for a long time afterwards.

She talked while they walked, because she couldn’t help it. It was what she did when she was nervous, and she was nervous now, in an entirely different way than she had been before. She told him about the survey and Iron Ridge, and about Ethan and Tanjiri and Lucas. She told him about the ledge collapsing and the long fall into the water. She had no idea how much of it he understood, but he listened with his head tilted towards her. Every so often he repeated a word back to her, as if he was tasting it.

“Fall,” he said. “Frrankie fall. Water.”

“That’s right.”

“Korrak… catch.” He frowned, as if the word didn’t fit quite right. “Push.”

She stopped walking. “That was you? In the pool, that first night? I thought it was the current.”

He looked at her blankly, and she realized she had lost him. She tried again, more slowly, using the words he knew. “Frankie fall in water. Night. First night. Korrak push?”

His face cleared, and he nodded. Then he mimed a clumsy, flailing swimmer with his arms and pointed at her, and she laughed out loud.

“Hey,” she said indignantly. “I was drowning. You don’t get to criticize my form.”

He smiled, a real smile this time, wide and warm and a little bit wicked. It transformed his face and made her stomach flutter.

I am in so much trouble.