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“That’s not helpful. I’m fine.” My irritation thrums, remembering his decision. I don’t want him to leave. I want him right here. Beside me. How else will I…I glare at the red pendant. Then look away. He meets my eyes, and staring into them renders me immobile because of the way he gazes at me. As if he’s probing my soul. As if he wants to know me in the deepest way. As if he wants to see me inside and out and love every part of me.

And as if he finally has the courage to.

It takes my breath away.

He looks at me like no one else ever has. My heart patters as I drink in his stare. It feels like all I’ve ever truly wanted was to be known fully and to hear that I’m okay. Tears well in my eyes and he rises from his seat, joining me at the bedside in a breath, tracing away each tear before it falls. I wish I could tell him that he thinks I’m the powerful, unapologetic, and carefree one. But the truth is I live in terror every day of being alone forever.

“You’re not fine. I always know how you’re really feeling.” His fingers leave my face and draw circles on my hands.

“I don’t like the idea of you leaving Yagrin and me to finish this trip together.”

“Why not?” Something hides between his words.

“He isn’t helpful in the ways you are.” Fear keeps me from admitting the full truth.

“Yagrin is good company. The times I couldn’t sleep when we were kids, he’d tell me stories. When my aunt found us, she dragged me from his room and gave me three nights with the wolves. She told me to cuddle them.” He shrugs nonchalantly. Hurt is etched in a notch between his brows. He doesn’t try to hide it.

Beaulah really broke him. Somehow I hate her more.

“The Healer had me for almost a month.”

“She is an awful person. She deserves what’s coming to her.”

“I’ve realized there’s something broken in my aunt. Instead of trying to fix it in herself, she tries to break it in other people.”

“I will break her more.” The truth of my plan sticks to my lips. I search him, wondering if maybe he could be convinced to help me take the Sphere’s magic and put justice in our hands.

He peels back the covers and climbs back in bed with me. I turn my back to him, hugging my pillow. This is always how it is with us. He connects to something inside me, and it holds on to me like a tether.

“Are you really going to leave?”

His hand rests on my back gently. I raise my elbow, allowing his arm to slip around me. He pulls me tight against him. My head nestles in the space beneath his jaw. “For now, let’s just both rest.”

He strokes the hairs beside my face. And in a breath I’m fast asleep.

* * *

I awaken with Jordan’s body wrapped around mine. He sleeps so peacefully. We’ve shifted in the night, and I’m sprawled across his chest. Outside our door is faint commotion. But I bury my head back in the covers, not wanting this to end. His hand strokes my back. Outside, the sky is a dim blue with the promise of morning. Last night feels like a dream.

“How sure are you there will be a flare today?” he asks.

“I would bet my toushana on it.” I have to tell him the truth about my plans for the Sphere’s magic. Otherwise, last night meant nothing.

“I need to get Yagrin so he can cloak with us.” He stirs beneath me, and I eye the pendant on his chest.

“I think I know where Beaulah is going to store the magic from the Sphere.”

“What do you mean?”

“The stone in the cave—I touched it because I suspected it was like Cultivator ring stones and could contain toushana.” I hold up his pendant. “I think this is made of the same stone.”

“I know for a fact it is. Why do you think I don’t let you ever touch it?”

“Jordan, I want to beat Beaulah at her own game. I want us to take the innards of the Sphere and hold them in your pendant.”

He goes rigid and my heart stumbles. Then he unfurls himself from me, and we sit up side by side in bed.

“See me, Jordan. Please. I don’t have any desire for power over the Order or anything ridiculous like that. I am not Beaulah.”