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“My nose really slayed you, didn’t it?”

“You sound ashamed.”

Silence. It had been ages since I’d had a conversation with someone this genuine and expressive. If ever.

His elegant fingers lifted, pausing close to my lips.

“May I?” he inquired.

18

Fantasy

May he what?

My mouth was supposed to ask that, but it must have broken. It became a faulty device that I’d have to fix later.

I nodded anyhow and watched his thumb approach, then felt it swipe the wooden knot near my lip, then felt myself malfunction altogether. We were alone, and it was dark, and we were alone, and it was dark, and we were alone.

My acorn heart used to be dormant. When he touched me, it burst to life.

I gazed at a knight, in a moonlit wood, like in a romance.

He gazed back, angelic and fearsome, like in a fairytale.

And fuck, he touched me. And my thoughts vaulted in the opposite direction of romances or fairytales. Smutty poetry came to mind. Pages and pages of it.

Aire’s gossamer voice murmured, “I apologize for looking upon you with trepidation when we met. It was misdirected.” He studied my face. “You have faint grains, unpronounced across your countenance, as if to imitate creases and laugh lines. And this knot.” He traced my beauty mark. “It’s of oak, an ancient species of tree, bestowing you with a piece of its history.”

“Damn,” I mumbled. “You’re good at this.”

One more dance of that finger across my wooden knot. “You wear Autumn on your very skin.”

I didn’t know what to do with that. I didn’t even know if those words fit me. Last, but not least, I didn’t know whether to be flattered or disappointed.

He didn’t see witchcraft. He didn’t see puppetry. He didn’t see deformity.

But he did see me as different.

Aire tilted his head. “Why are you here?”

He knew why. I’d explained it to him, then I’d repeated it around the fire pit.

Unless he meant something else. Unless he meant why was I right here, right now, with him?

I hadn’t realized that I’d leaned into his fingers. Not until he sobered and pulled back, the abruptness making me blink.

Time to get the hell away from each other.

“Goodnight,” he said.

“Mmm-hmm,” I agreed.

Anything else would have come out as gibberish. I watched him stand and stride away, taking his exposed chest and my plucky tongue with him.

***

I’d slept like the dead, exhausted from Aire’s farewell gesture.