Fang’s POV
The girl looked better by morning.
That did not mean she was well.
Humans mistook standing for healing.
Aqua was not human, but she had learned the habit from them.
She moved through the kitchen with more color in her cheeks and steadier breath in her chest, and because the room did not tilt badly enough to make her reach for a wall, she called herself improved.
She was improved.
She was not whole.
Her Currena moved clearer than before, but not freely.
Still slow near the edges.
Still thick where it should have run smooth.
The pink aura her love produced had recovered some of its warmth too. It gathered close to her chest when Steven smiled at her from across the kitchen.
The love did not weaken.
That was not what troubled me.
It still warmed for him instinctively.
But the ease around it trembled.
Only slightly.
A candle flame touched by air no one else could feel.
I saw it.
I did not like it.
Aqua stood beside the kitchen table with one hand wrapped around her cup and the other hovering over a basket of folded napkins, as if deciding whether putting them away counted as resting or work.
Steven noticed before she moved.
“I can do that.”
“I am only putting napkins away.”
“You are thinking about putting napkins away.”
She gave him a look.
“I did not know thoughts were forbidden now.”
“Only suspicious ones.”
Her mouth twitched.
That pleased her.
Pink warmth brightened around her.
Steven took the basket before she could argue and carried it to the counter.
He moved easily.
Calmly.
No stumble.
No half apology when the basket bumped the cupboard.
No little glance back to see whether he had done too much, too little, or worried her by existing near breakable things.
He placed the napkins where they belonged.
Mostly.
The third stack leaned unevenly.
Aqua saw it.
Her expression softened.
Good.
A mistake.
Small.
Harmless.
Useful.
I watched Steven’s hands.
They did not fidget afterward.
Did not twitch with the need to straighten the stack.
Did not hover because Aqua had noticed and he was wondering whether she was too kind to say anything.
He left the napkins crooked.
The mistake belonged to his body.
It had not touched the thing behind his eyes.
My tongue flicked once.
Warm kitchen air.
Tea.
Honey.
Toast.
Aqua’s salt-water sweetness faint beneath soap and sleep.
Steven.
And something beneath Steven.
Not a smell.
Not anything a nose could name.
The bond knew better than the nose.
The bond had known since the night the boy returned carrying too much quiet.
I had wanted to be wrong.
Guardians could want foolish things too.
“You are staring again,” Aqua said.
I looked at her.
She was watching me, not him.
“I am all right,” she said softly.
My tail tapped twice.
No.
She sighed.
“I am better.”
One blink.
Yes.
Her smile returned, smaller this time.
“I will take that.”
Steven turned from the counter.
“A generous verdict.”
I did not blink.
His eyes met mine.
Blue.
Familiar.
Steven’s in color.
Wrong in stillness.
Aqua missed it because she was watching his mouth.
She had been doing that often.
Sometimes because he made her blush and she did not know where to put the feeling.
Sometimes because she was looking for something she could not name.
I could not tell her.
Not cleanly.
Not with anything she would understand.
A blink could mean yes.
A tail tap could mean no.
A hiss could warn.
None of those could say:
The man in your kitchen is wearing your husband so well that even your heart wants to forgive the seams.
So I watched.
That was what old serpents did when teeth were not yet enough.
---
By late morning, Aqua decided she wanted the garden.
Steven tried to make her take a chair.
She agreed too quickly, which meant she planned to stand as long as he looked away.
He did not look away often.
The garden behind the house had grown wild at the edges since the wedding.
Heat had thickened the herbs, stretched the vines, and coaxed weeds between the stones.
The air smelled of damp soil, sun-warmed leaves, and flowers beginning to tire under summer.
Aqua stepped onto the path and breathed in as though the green things had greeted her by name.
Her shoulders lowered.
Currena stirred.
Better.
The water in the stems recognized her water.
Moisture in the soil answered faintly.
Not enough to gather.
Only enough to listen.
Steven carried the watering can.
Aqua noticed.
“I can hold that.”
“I know.”
“Then why are you holding it?”
“Because you can hold the smaller one.”
She narrowed her eyes.
“I see what you did.”
“I was hoping you would.”
He handed her the lighter can.
She took it, trying not to smile.
The pink glow around her warmed again.
He had chosen well.
Not too much help.
Not so much that she felt useless.
Enough to make her rest without naming it rest.
Kind.
Careful.
Precise.
The words were kind.
That was why I hated them.
Kind words could still have teeth.
Aqua began watering the herbs.
She moved slowly from plant to plant, careful not to spill too much onto the stones.
The sun caught in her pale hair, turning the blue streaks brighter where they fell over her shoulder.
Steven knelt beside the flower bed and pulled weeds.
He did not mind the dirt.
That part fit.
The boy had lost enough polish in these mountains to stop caring about mud.
But he pulled each weed cleanly, root and all, without tearing half the bed apart.
His posture stayed too balanced.
Even kneeling, he looked as if he could rise in one motion and fight.
Steven often looked like he was still learning what his limbs were for.
This one looked like he remembered other bodies.
Older bodies.
Bodies trained before this boy was born.
I slid beneath the garden bench and coiled in the shade.
Aqua watered the basil.
Steven glanced up.
“You look better in the sun.”
The watering can dipped.
Water spilled across her shoes.
“Oh.”
Her cheeks colored.
Steven smiled.
Not wide.
Not shy.
Pleased.
“You are saying things like that a lot lately,” she said.
“Should I stop?”
“No.”
She looked down at the wet stones.
“I just… I am still getting used to it.”
“Then I will give you time.”
Simple.
Smooth.
Too smooth.
Aqua laughed softly, but the sound carried a question inside it.
The boy would have blushed with her.
This one watched the blush like a man studying fire.
My tail shifted through the grass.
Steven’s eyes flicked toward me.
Only once.
Enough to say he knew I was watching.
Aqua moved to the next plant.
“You know,” she said, “I did not marry you for free garden labor.”
Steven pulled another weed and dropped it into the basket.
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“Good. I would hate to learn I was chosen for my usefulness.”
Aqua stilled.
Only for a breath.
Then she smiled.
Softly.
“You were not.”
“I am relieved.”
“You were chosen for being impossible.”
His mouth curved.
“There are worse qualifications.”
“And for being kind.”
His fingers paused in the dirt.
There.
I waited.
The boy would have broken around that word.
Not badly.
Not loudly.
But something in him always bent when Aqua called him good things he did not know how to hold.
Kind.
Safe.
Loved.
He would have looked away.
Swallowed too hard.
Made a joke that limped because sincerity reached him first.
This one lowered his eyes for exactly long enough.
Then said, “Then I should try to remain worthy of the position.”
Aqua’s expression softened because the sentence was beautiful.
Mine did not.
Position.
Role.
Husband.
He kept speaking as if love were a station to occupy well.
I tasted the air again.
Old Arcanum lingered beneath the garden in Worthington’s wards.
Green.
Structured.
Layered under root and stone.
Currena shimmered from Aqua.
Incenda warmed Steven’s blood.
And beneath that—
Amoris.
Pink.
Tangled.
Muted.
Not gone.
Steven’s love was still there.
Buried deep enough that I felt it through resistance.
Restless.
Frightened.
Alive.
Something older stood between it and me.
I reached through the bond.
Carefully.
Steven.
His fingers paused around a weed.
Then he looked toward me.
“Yes?”
Spoken aloud.
As Steven always spoke to me.
That was not the problem.
Steven had talked to me with his mouth long before either of us understood what the bond between us could become.
Even now, he usually did.
The problem was the answer.
Too clean.
Too ready.
Steven put feeling into my name without trying.
Irritation.
Affection.
Confusion.
Fear.
Whatever he happened to be carrying.
Something.
Always something.
This one gave me an opened door.
Nothing standing behind it.
You are working hard.
“She needs rest.”
True.
Truth made the best masks.
You usually argue with me when I say that.
His mouth curved faintly.
“Maybe I am tired of losing arguments.”
Aqua looked toward him.
“What?”
“Fang is insulting me.”
“I am sure you deserve it.”
“I often do.”
She smiled and returned to the herbs.
The exchange looked normal.
Sounded normal.
It was close enough to normal to make a foolish creature stop looking.
I was old.
I was not foolish.
The bond remained wrong.
Not empty.
Empty would have been easier.
Empty would have meant grief.
Clean.
Terrible.
This was worse.
Steven was there.
I could feel him.
Fear pressed thin behind something that would not let me reach him.
His love for Aqua moved like trapped heat.
His anger.
His confusion.
Alive.
And between us—
oldness.
Fire beneath fire.
A presence that had spent too long pressed against Steven’s soul to be mistaken for a stranger.
I knew that presence.
I had felt it when the boy’s rage became too old for him.
When his fire changed.
When another will pressed close enough to look through his eyes.
Salizar.
My head lifted.
There.
The name.
At last.
I knew.
And knowing changed nothing.
Aqua could not hear me.
A blink could not say Salizar.
A hiss could not explain possession.
A tail strike could not tell her Steven was still alive behind his own eyes.
I hated language.
I hated two-legged creatures for having so much of it.
Steven pulled another weed.
I watched him.
Are you trying to be better for her?
He glanced toward Aqua before answering.
“Yes.”
Quiet enough for her not to notice.
No hesitation.
Or easier for her?
That made him pause.
He pulled another root free before looking at me.
“Is there a difference?”
My body went still.
Yes, boy.
There was a difference.
There was always a difference.
Better meant growing without erasing yourself.
Easier meant becoming smooth enough that no one cut their hands on your broken pieces.
Steven would have worried over that question until it bled.
He would have asked what I meant.
Feared the answer before I gave it.
This one stepped over it without looking down.
Aqua turned.
“Steven?”
His gaze left me.
“Yes?”
“You went quiet.”
“Fang said something annoying.”
“That sounds like him.”
I hissed.
Aqua’s smile warmed.
Steven’s did too.
Almost.
---
By afternoon, Aqua had done half as much as she intended and twice as much as I wanted.
Steven ended the garden work before I had to.
“You are done.”
“I have one more row.”
“You have one more row tomorrow.”
She looked at the herbs as if they had betrayed her.
“They will survive.”
“That is not the point.”
“No,” he said gently. “The point is you surviving them.”
Her mouth opened.
Closed.
Then she laughed, eyes shining.
“You are impossible.”
“I was chosen for it.”
There.
A softer answer.
A good one.
The pink aura her love produced warmed around her ribs.
Her love for him still answered immediately.
What trembled was the ease around it.
She liked this.
She liked being cared for.
She liked the boldness.
The steadiness.
The way he stayed near without collapsing under the weight of his own wanting.
I could not blame her.
Her love knew Steven’s face.
Steven’s voice.
Steven’s hands.
It reached for him before suspicion could interfere.
But some quieter part of her had started listening.
Listening for something that did not arrive.
Steven carried the garden basket inside.
Aqua followed with the smaller watering can.
I remained behind for one breath and tasted the patch of dirt where he had knelt.
Soil.
Herbs.
Incenda.
Oldness.
Salizar.
My head rose higher.
There were many kinds of predators.
Some struck from grass.
Some smiled from beloved faces.
---
Evening came heavy and gold.
The house filled with the tired quiet that followed a day of pretending it had been easy.
Aqua sat by the window with tea, one foot tucked beneath her, eyes half-lidded while summer light moved across her cheek.
Better.
Still not well.
Steven sat across from her with Dylan’s folder closed on his lap.
Closed.
For the second day.
That alone should have been relief.
Aqua watched the folder.
“You can read it if you want.”
“I said no training.”
“Reading is not training.”
“With Dylan’s notes, it is close enough.”
Her smile flickered.
“You miss it.”
“No.”
Too quick.
Aqua tilted her head.
He corrected smoothly.
“I miss feeling as if I am doing something useful. I do not miss what it cost you.”
Her face softened.
Pink warmth answered him immediately.
That was the cruel part.
Her love did exactly what love was supposed to do.
It trusted.
Later, after dinner, Steven stood near the door and rolled his shoulders.
Aqua noticed.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“That is never nothing.”
His mouth curved.
“I thought I might take a light jog around the field.”
The room changed.
Only slightly.
Aqua’s fingers tightened around her cup.
“Training?”
“Not training.”
“Steven.”
“Movement,” he said. “Only movement. I kept my promise today. I will keep it tonight.”
Her brows drew together.
“You do not have to.”
“I know.”
“Then why?”
His gaze moved toward the window.
The sun hung low beyond the yard, washing the training field in amber.
“The body feels trapped.”
Aqua looked down.
That answer worked.
I saw it.
She understood trapped things.
Water in stone.
Daughters in palaces.
Love forced into shapes it had not chosen.
Her grip loosened.
“Light.”
“Light.”
“No drills.”
“No drills.”
“No fire.”
“No fire.”
“And you come back before it gets too dark.”
“I will.”
Then she looked at me.
“Go with him?”
My tongue flicked.
Steven looked toward me too.
For one heartbeat, irritation crossed his face.
Real.
There and gone.
“He may come.”
I did not need his permission.
He knew that.
Aqua smiled faintly.
“Thank you.”
Steven smiled back.
“Anything for peace.”
Another good answer.
Another clean one.
I followed him outside.
---
The Georgia evening was hot and damp.
Heat clung to the grass, the porch rail, the stones along the path.
Cicadas screamed from the trees until the forest sounded irritated with itself.
Steven walked toward the training field.
He did not jog at first.
Neither did I.
His shoes brushed the dirt with an even rhythm.
Shoulders rolled once.
Settled.
Last light caught in his blond hair.
The body was young.
Powerful.
Still recovering from too much fear, though Salizar wore it as though fear had never touched it.
He reached the edge of the field.
Stopped.
No fire.
No drill.
Only a slow breath.
Measured.
Then he began jogging.
Lightly.
As promised.
One circle.
Then another.
His pace stayed controlled.
Not too fast.
Not too slow.
The kind of pace chosen by someone who knew he was being watched.
I moved through the grass beside him.
Watching.
Waiting.
On the fourth circle, he stopped near the far edge where the field met the first line of trees.
His breathing had quickened.
Barely.
He looked down at me.
“You are very committed to this.”
To watching you? Yes.
His mouth curved.
“Should I be flattered?”
Worried.
“There is that famous warmth.”
You are working very hard.
“You said that already.”
At her.
The smile stayed.
Faint.
Controlled.
“Caring for my wife is suspicious now?”
When you do it like a man studying for a test, yes.
His eyes sharpened.
Only slightly.
There.
A crack too small for Aqua.
Large enough for me.
“I thought you wanted me careful with her.”
Careful is not the same as performed.
“And yet she is resting.”
She is trying to.
His gaze drifted toward the house.
Windows glowed faintly through the trees.
“She needs someone steady.”
She needs Steven.
His eyes returned to me.
Silence.
I raised my head higher.
Enough.
All day I had watched him answer around me.
Perform around Aqua.
Hide inside a familiar face.
There was no one here now.
Only trees.
The field.
The bond.
And me.
Where is Steven?
The smile disappeared.
For one heartbeat, absolutely nothing moved.
Then something changed behind his eyes.
Blue darkened.
Red bled slowly through it.
The pupils narrowed.
Vertical.
Snake-like.
Ancient.
My body tightened.
Steven’s face remained.
The thing looking through it did not.
His mouth curved again.
Not Steven’s smile.
His.
“Of course a familiar would know his master.”
I raised my head farther, front body lifting from the grass.
My fangs showed.
You are not my master.
Salizar’s smile widened by a fraction.
“No?”
The bond tightened.
Not enough to hurt.
Enough to make every muscle in my body notice.
My coils locked.
Rage moved through me.
He had not formed this bond.
Steven had.
Steven had earned it.
Steven had become mine as much as I had become his.
Salizar was only standing at the front of the same body.
Holding the same core.
His hands on a connection that did not belong to him.
Where is he?
The red eyes gleamed.
“Still here.”
My body went cold.
Salizar tilted Steven’s head.
“Quite loud, actually.”
Relief struck first.
Alive.
Steven was alive.
Then horror followed.
Awake.
Let him out.
“No.”
Nothing playful.
Nothing softened.
One word.
I struck my tail against the dirt.
Give me my master.
“Careful.”
The familiar bond tightened again.
This time the pressure went deeper.
Through muscle.
Through instinct.
Straight toward the place where Steven’s magic had joined mine.
My body lowered half an inch before I forced it back up.
I hissed.
Salizar watched.
Interested.
“You have been testing me all day.”
Yes.
“Watching me.”
Yes.
“Trying to decide whether the boy you know is still standing behind these eyes.”
He is.
Something sharpened in Salizar’s expression.
I showed more fang.
I can feel him.
The smile returned.
“Then your instincts are not completely useless.”
What do you want with Aqua?
That changed him.
Not much.
But I had become very good at small changes.
His gaze shifted toward the distant house.
“Nothing she is unwilling to give.”
My tail struck the dirt again.
She thinks you are Steven.
The red eyes returned to me.
A quiet pause.
Then:
“She thinks many things.”
That is not consent.
His mouth flattened.
Good.
That reached something.
“She is safe.”
From you?
Silence.
Then Salizar stepped closer.
I did not lower myself.
He stopped a few feet away.
“Do you imagine biting me would help?”
I bared my fangs wider.
His smile came back.
“There you are.”
Try me.
“Oh, I believe you would.”
His gaze moved over my body.
Black scales.
Yellow stripes.
Coiled muscle waiting for one bad step.
“But if you strike this body, whose blood do you spill?”
I froze.
Steven.
Cruel.
Efficient.
He knew exactly where to place the knife.
Salizar crouched.
Steven’s face came closer to mine.
Red slit eyes burned beneath blond hair.
“Now we understand one another.”
No.
The bond pulled.
My muscles tightened.
“You know who I am.”
Salizar.
For the first time, hearing the name from me seemed to please him.
“Yes.”
You are wearing him.
“Yes.”
You stole him.
Something flickered.
Annoyance.
“He gave me the front.”
Not this.
There.
A sharper reaction.
Steven moved inside him.
I felt it.
Anger.
Pain.
Alive.
Salizar’s eyes narrowed.
I held them.
He wants out.
“Steven wants many things.”
He wants Aqua.
Silence.
That one landed differently.
Good.
I pressed.
And she wants Steven.
The red in his eyes deepened.
The bond tightened.
Hard.
My body involuntarily lowered.
I fought it.
Raised myself again.
Salizar watched the resistance with a patience I hated.
“That is enough.”
No.
“Fang.”
Steven’s voice.
Salizar’s command.
My name struck the bond differently now.
Heavy.
Wrong.
I knew what he was about to do before he did it.
I tried to pull away.
The bond snapped tight.
My muscles locked.
Salizar stood.
Red eyes glowing.
“You will listen.”
The words dropped through Steven’s connection to me.
Not persuasion.
Not request.
Command.
My body went rigid.
Rage tore through every scale.
I could think.
I could hate.
I could resist inside myself.
My body belonged to the bond.
Salizar looked down at me.
“You will not come against me.”
I strained.
Nothing moved.
“You will not interfere with what I am doing.”
My tail twitched once.
Stopped.
“You will not reveal my presence to Aqua.”
No.
I fought harder.
The bond constricted.
“You will not warn her.”
My head trembled.
That was all I could manage.
Salizar’s red eyes brightened.
“Not with a blink.”
No.
“Not with your tail.”
No.
“Not with a hiss.”
My fangs remained bared.
Useless.
“Not by looking toward me when she asks what is wrong.”
He had noticed.
Everything.
Of course he had.
“You will not use your body, your bond, or whatever clever little signal you invent to tell Aqua—or anyone else—that I am here.”
The command drove deeper.
Around instinct.
Around intention.
Building walls.
I hated him.
I hated the bond for obeying.
I hated Steven’s magic for recognizing his own stolen body strongly enough to let Salizar touch what belonged between us.
Salizar watched me struggle.
Something almost pleased moved across his face.
Not joy.
Control.
He liked control.
“You will return to Aqua.”
My body shifted toward the house.
I fought it.
Stopped halfway.
Pain flashed through the bond.
Not enough to injure.
Enough to correct.
“You will stay beside her.”
Another pull.
“You will protect her.”
That part required no force.
I would have done it without him.
Perhaps he knew that.
Perhaps that was why he chose it.
“And you will obey these commands until I release you.”
The final words settled.
Locked.
For one terrible moment, I could do nothing except breathe.
Salizar’s eyes remained red.
Watching.
Waiting to see if I would try again.
I did.
I raised my head.
Slowly.
Every inch fought against the pressure.
My fangs showed.
You can pull his bond.
The thought moved freely.
He could not silence that.
Not inside me.
Only what I did with it.
I held his gaze.
That does not make you him.
The red eyes narrowed.
There.
Anger.
Real.
His.
Salizar stood fully.
“No.”
The answer surprised me.
His voice had gone quieter.
“It does not.”
For one breath, neither of us moved.
Then the arrogance returned.
“But tonight, it makes me the one holding the leash.”
My body turned toward the house.
I hated the word.
I hated him more.
I forced my head back one last time.
Steven is my master.
Salizar’s expression went cold.
“Then perhaps you should be grateful I am keeping his wife alive.”
My body moved.
One length.
Then another.
Not entirely forced now.
That was the cruelest part.
Aqua was inside.
Recovering.
Unaware.
She needed me.
Even without the command, I would have gone back to her eventually.
Salizar had taken a choice I might have made willingly and made it worthless.
I stopped after several lengths.
The command allowed that much.
I looked back.
Not as warning.
No Aqua here to see.
Only him.
If you hurt either of them—
Salizar’s head tilted.
“You cannot come against me.”
Not an answer.
A reminder.
My fangs showed again.
Inside myself, where his command could not reach, I promised anyway.
The red faded slowly from his eyes.
Blue returned.
Steven’s blue.
Steven’s face.
Steven’s body.
The lie rebuilt itself.
Then Salizar looked toward the trees.
Something beyond the field had caught his attention.
Something old.
Soft.
Violet.
The evening insects began quieting one layer at a time.
I felt Aetheris in the distance.
Dipsi.
For one desperate second, hope rose.
She could see things.
She noticed things.
Maybe—
The command tightened the moment my thoughts turned toward warning.
Not my thoughts.
My intention.
I could not go after her.
Could not signal.
Could not interfere.
A light shifted in the house window.
Aqua.
Moving.
Alone.
My body turned toward her before Salizar had to force it.
I went home.
Not because he was my master.
Not because he had won.
Because Aqua still needed someone who belonged to her.
And for now—
I was the only one left who did.
---
Salizar’s POV
The serpent returned to the girl.
Reluctantly.
Obediently.
There was a difference.
I watched the grass close behind his black-and-yellow body and allowed Steven’s mouth to smile.
A loyal creature.
An inconvenient creature.
Far less foolish than I had hoped.
His recognition had come eventually.
Perhaps I should have expected it sooner.
Familiars lived too close to the soul.
That made them useful.
That made them dangerous.
Now it made Fang manageable.
The moment he disappeared beyond the curve of the path, I let the smile fall.
There was no need to wear Steven for trees.
The Georgia evening pressed hot and wet against his skin.
Sweat gathered at his hairline and beneath the collar of his shirt.
His lungs worked easily.
Young.
Strong.
Taking in the heavy forest air as though it had been built for him.
This body recovered quickly.
A shame it had spent so long apologizing for its own strength.
I rolled the shoulders once.
Better.
Still not mine.
Not fully.
But the body was learning my weight.
Or I was teaching it.
Steven raged somewhere inside.
The command to Fang had bothered him.
Good.
Perhaps he had finally noticed that opening a door meant surrendering more than the room behind it.
Beyond the field, the trees darkened toward the boundary.
Worthington’s Arcanum wards moved there in quiet green lines, layered and clever beneath earth and root.
I had felt them since waking in the boy’s bones.
But this was not the wards.
Something else pressed at the edge of perception.
Soft.
Amused.
Violet.
I turned toward it.
Steven’s anger sharpened.
He knew the signature too.
Dipsi Stone.
I remembered her from the wedding.
The woman who had stepped through smoke and smiled at old power as if old power were an inside joke.
The woman Fredrick Worth treated with caution hidden beneath courtesy.
The woman who stood beside Aqua with sisterhood on her tongue and something ancient behind her eyes.
Dangerous.
Interesting.
I walked toward the trees.
Branches shifted overhead though no true wind moved through them.
The cicadas quieted one layer at a time until the forest held a silence too deliberate to be natural.
Aetheris brushed Steven’s skin.
Purple.
Deep.
Tasting faintly of sealed doors and buried stars.
I followed it.
The boundary opened into a narrow stretch where roots twisted above the ground and the last remains of sunset bled through the leaves.
She waited on a branch above me.
Bare feet crossed at the ankle.
Dark hair falling loose over one shoulder.
Brown eyes watching with lazy interest.
No purple glow at first.
Almost ordinary.
That was likely the first lie.
Dipsi Stone rested one elbow on her knee and propped her chin in her hand as though she had been waiting in trees for men wearing stolen faces her entire life and found the habit mildly entertaining.
“There you are,” she said.
I stopped beneath her.
Steven’s face lifted.
My smile returned.
This time, I did not bother making it his.
Dipsi’s brown eyes brightened faintly at the edges.
Purple stirred behind them like flame behind glass.
“Oh,” she said, smiling wider.
“That is much better.”
I inclined my head.
“Miss Stone.”
“Mm.”
She swung one foot.
“Polite too.”
“Would you prefer rude?”
“I prefer honest.”
Her gaze moved over Steven’s face.
Slow.
Piercing.
“But I do enjoy watching liars decide which costume to wear.”
The forest held still.
Steven moved inside me.
Furious.
Listening.
Good.
Let him listen.
Dipsi tilted her head.
“Well?”
I smiled with the boy’s mouth.
“What would you like me to say?”
Purple brightened behind her brown eyes.
“The truth would be a charming start.”
Aetheris pressed against the air.
Not enough to bind.
Not yet.
Only enough to remind me that she could.
I looked up at her beneath the violet-dark sky and felt something close to amusement move through me.
The night had become more interesting than expected.
“Very well,” I said.
And let the boy’s voice smooth into mine.
“My name is Salizar.”