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I turn to find him leaning against a sharp rise of stone, arms crossed, his gaze pinned on me as a furrow creases his brow.

“I thought I heard something.”

He nods behind me. “That might have been our uninvited spectator.”

My eyes sweep over the jagged rocks and the whorled shapes of the wind harps, but at first, I see nothing. Then, a flicker of movement catches my attention, and my gaze lands on a figure perched farther along the ridge.

The leonai.

With its sleek white fur and wings tucked neatly against its sides, the leonai is barely visible against the snowy backdrop.

“Is it the same one?” I call over my shoulder.

“Yes, it followed us here. I thought it might lose interest eventually, but it seems to have taken a liking to you.”

“To me?” I glance back at him. “Why?”

He looks at me intently. “Maybe because you spared its life? That tends to have quite an impact.”

His words make my chest tighten. I can’t tell if he’s talking about the leonai or himself, and the thought flusters me more than I’d like to admit.

I tear my eyes away from him and look back at the leonai.

Lyxander steps closer to me, his boots crunching softly against the snow. “Leonai are intelligent, far more than most creatures. Long ago, they were known to form bonds with Harpaurai, and sometimes, if the bond was strong enough, they would even allow those who hadn’t yet emerged to fly them.”

The leonai’s wings unfurl, its feathers catching the light in a way that makes them shimmer like spun silver, and then…it starts to roll around in the snow.

“So intelligent,” I say. “It’s a giant cat.”

“A giant cat that could toss you off this ridge with a flick of its tail.” He chuckles, the sound low and warm. “Or have you walking right off the edge with a drop of its blood in your system.”

I grimace as I watch the leonai flop onto its side.

Lyxander had graciously filled me in on the details after the fact, his tone maddeningly calm as he explained that leonai are not only resistant to most poisons but enjoy eating them. Apparently, moonflower—a toxic plant that causes terrifying hallucinations—is like catnip to them. He’d surmised that the leonai must have eaten some not long before it got caught in the trap, and when I cut my hand freeing it, its poisoned blood had seeped into my wound.

I listened to his explanation with a carefully blank expression and denied most of what he said, brushing it off as exaggeration.

Unfortunately, I remember all of it—in painfully vivid detail.

The fever that burned through me like wildfire, the way the world tilted and blurred, the unbearable heat that made me tear off my clothes in the freezing cold. And, worst of all, the things I said to him in my delirium.

You’re so bright. Stars and moonlight.

I peek at Lyxander out of the corner of my eye, half expecting him to bring it up again, but he’s watching the leonai with a smirk, tendrils of his silver hair that have escaped the tie stirring in the wind.

Then his gaze flicks to me, and the smirk deepens.

A flush of heat rises up my neck, then blooms across my cheeks. “Stop smirking before I knock you off this ridge.”

His laugh is a low rumble that grates and disarms all at once. The sound curls around me, and my heart skips a beat.

“If you’re going to threaten me, little bird—mean it.”

The words have barely left his lips before the wind howls.

Lyxander stumbles back, losing his footing, and crashes into the snow, a flurry erupting around him. I can’t help but grin.

He rises to his feet slowly, his lips twitching as if fighting back laughter.