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Wasn't going to happen, but Fenella was too tired to argue with Din about it now. It could wait for the morning.

"I'm looking forward to more psychic revelations tomorrow," Atzil said with a grin. "Goodnight, you two."

As he walked away and Fenella was left alone with Din, the adrenaline that had sustained her throughout the evening started to ebb, leaving exhaustion in its wake. Without thinking, she leaned against him, her head finding a comfortable spot on his shoulder.

"Tired?" he asked, his arm coming around her waist.

"Completely drained," she admitted. "But in a good way."

They started toward Shira's place at an easy pace. The village was quiet at this hour; most residents had long since retired for the night, and surprisingly, there were no drunks sprawled on the benches they were passing by.

"I've been thinking," Din said.

"A dangerous pastime," Fenella murmured.

He chuckled. "Perhaps. But necessary."

Something in his tone made her glance up at his face, trying to read his expression in the dim light of the moon and stars. "What about?"

"I'm in love with you, Fenella."

The declaration stopped her in her tracks. She pulled away to look at him, searching his expression to see if he expected her to tell him that she loved him back.

"I don't need you to say it to me," he added quickly. "That's not why I'm telling you. I just wanted you to know where I stand. You can take all the time you need."

A jumble of emotions tumbled through her. Part of her wanted to flee from the intensity of his declaration, while another part yearned to believe in the possibility he was offering and grab on to it.

"You claimed to be in love with me fifty years ago," she said finally, resuming their walk. "But it couldn't have been true then because you didn't know me. Don't fall into the trap of falling in love with the notion of love. We are just getting to know each other, and one day this relationship could blossom into love, but we are not there yet."

She was acutely aware of how painful it must be for him to hear, but one of them needed to be the voice of reason, and it seemed that the task had fallen to her.

"You're right," Din admitted, falling into step beside her. "What I felt then wasn't really love. It was infatuation, fascination, desire—but not love. I didn't know you well enough."

"And you do now?" Fenella challenged.

"I know you better now. And every new facet I discover only deepens my feelings for you." He paused. "But I know you're nowhere near ready to say those words back to me, and that's okay. I can wait."

Part of her wanted to deflect with humor or sarcasm, her usual defenses against emotional vulnerability, but Din deserved better than reflexive deflection.

"It's been a very long time since I allowed myself to get close enough to even try to feel anything."

"I understand," Din said, and she believed he did. "There's no rush."

They walked a bit further in silence, the path winding between the village's charming homes and lush greenery.

"The birthday party tomorrow should be fun," Fenella said to defuse the tension that had settled between them. "Jasmine says half the village has been involved in planning it and that everyone is going to participate."

"Immortals don't usually celebrate birthdays, but it's Allegra's first, and since she was born on Kian's two thousandth birthday, Syssi decided that a joint party was the way to go. Perhaps it will become a new village tradition." Din reached for her hand. "We are still writing our customs and traditions. Perhaps there will be a new one based on your fake readings. It could be a competition for who can make up the most outlandish stories."

"It could be fun." She sighed. "The truth is that I don't know what I want yet. I'm still figuring out who I am now, and if this latest cycle of reinventing myself will be the last."

He gave her hand a gentle squeeze. "Finding a safe haven doesn't mean that you have to stick to whatever role you want to play right now. You can keep reinventing yourself as many times as you want. Take me, for example. I wasn't always defined as a stuffy professor."

"You're not a stuffy professor." She turned to him, wound her arms around his neck, and stretched on her tiptoes to plant a soft kiss on his lips. "You are the hunky professor all the female students fantasize about."

He took over the kiss, deepening it, and when they came up for air, he rested his forehead against hers. "I only care about the fantasies of one feisty bartender. No one else's."

* * *

Later, when Fenella was standing under the spray in the shower, she thought about Din's declaration of love and how it complicated things. Surprisingly, she didn't feel the urge to run from the complication as she would have expected. Instead, she was cautiously circling it, examining it from different angles, considering possibilities she'd long since abandoned.

She had a job she loved, a newfound family to get to know, and a man who looked at her like she was the answer to a question he'd been asking for centuries. It wasn't a bad position to be in, all things considered.

The future, for once, held more promise than threat. And that, perhaps, was the most surprising development of all.