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A fork of lightning flashed, and below, the waves surged violently. ‘I don’t believe that for a second.’

Her words were loaded, and hit him like a bolt to the chest. Gods, he wanted to touch her, to hold her, to close his hands around her lightning-tipped fingers and —

‘This has taught me something,’ Thea ventured, glancing at him and then back to her now retreating storm.

‘Tell me.’

‘That if you and I are… together… I’ll never be a Warsword.’

Wilder’s stomach bottomed out.

‘You interfered just now,’ Thea continued. ‘And it was only Audra, only words…’

‘And you were losing it.’

‘I’ll lose it many times over between now and when I die, Wilder. I won’t become the best, won’t become worthy of the Great Rite without getting hurt – without withstanding pain, whatever form it takes. And yet you won’t let me. You won’t allow me to face those things, not if… Not if I’m yours.’

‘I —’

‘You care for me,’ she continued. ‘Despite the mess we’re in… I see it in the little things, more than anything else. Leaving tea for me in the cabin, sewing up my torn clothes…’ The sparks at Thea’s fingertips died and she sat down on the cliff edge, dangling her legs carelessly over the side, her gaze scanning the Chained Islands before them. ‘It’s sooner than I wanted, but we need to have that conversation.’

‘I know,’ Wilder said, sitting beside her, resisting the urge to reach for her hand.

‘You as the cold, unflinching master doesn’t work. Do you agree?’ Thea asked, turning to him.

‘Yes.’

‘Nor does you as the lover and mentor. As the situation with Audra just now proved. Do you agree?’

Wilder loosed a trembling breath. ‘I agree.’

‘So we need to find some common ground in between.’

‘I take it you have a suggestion?’ Wilder could feel her body heat and her magic rippling from her, soaking into his side.

Thea nodded. ‘Friends. Mutual respect. Honesty.’

‘Friends…’ Wilder tasted the word.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘We’d have to make a pact, though. We must vow to one another… We cannot have a repeat of yesterday, or the other times we’ve… been together.’

‘No sex?’ Wilder clarified.

Pink tipped Thea’s cheeks and the sight made Wilder’s heart ache anew.

But his apprentice gathered herself. ‘Yes. No sex, of any kind. None of that sort of intimacy. Friendship only. And trust. If it’s going to work, Wilder – if we have any hope of making this dynamic work – there has to be complete honesty between us.’

‘No lies.’

‘No lies,’ Thea echoed. ‘No omissions. Everything out in the open.’

‘That’s a tall order, Alchemist,’ Wilder said, pushing his hair from his face, trying to master the pounding in his chest.

‘It’s the only way.’

Wilder allowed himself a moment to study her, the young woman he’d fallen for: capable of slaying monsters and wielding storms, his apprentice who warred against fate itself. How could he deny her this?

He offered her his callused hand. ‘So be it.’