“I need practice breaking them.”

“Oh.” He let out an odd, muted laugh. At the same moment, he closed up. Not walls, perhaps, but screens formed between us. “Ah, yeah. Sure. Just any charm?”

I propped myself up on my elbows. The air outside the blankets was terribly cold. “How did you do that?”

“I didn’t do nothing yet,” he said.

“No, forget about the charm. How did you pull back like that?”

Sorcha’s eyebrows furrowed. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You just—just then, you just made us…uh, separate? How did you make that distance?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, what are you hiding from me?”

He sat up. The curve of his back as his shoulders slumped away from me spoke volumes. I immediately wished I hadn’t pressed him. If I had stopped at all to think, if I had taken even a second to myself, I would’ve known. But I hadn’t. Wrapped up as I was in my own anxieties, I forgot that he had some, too.

“Ariah, I thought you’d thought it through and come around,” he said quietly. He glanced at me over his shoulder. “I didn’t mean to pull back. Just happened. I don’t know how I did it, honest. I’d tell you if I did.” He lay down again beside me, this time on his stomach. “Hey, I’m good. You know I’m good. Been meaning to ask you something, though.”

“Ask me what?”

“I just don’t understand why you’re here. Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad for it, but this training you’re putting yourself through. What’s the point of it? You were fine in the City.”

“I wasn’t fine.”

“You were.”

“I wasn’t. Do you remember the family dinners?”

He was quiet for a moment. “But you weren’t like that all the time. You managed all right.”

I laughed. It was a harsh thing, a bitter thing. He looked over at me. “I was stoned. After you kissed me, I kept myself as stoned as possible. There’s nothing to manage when I’m stoned. And then, after, Sorcha, I…the gift had me twisted. I got detained at the border. I did stupid things. I was constantly on the verge of getting arrested or reassigned to line work or worse in Rabatha. Dirva pulled a lot of strings to keep me safe.”

“You got detained?”

I nodded.

“For what?”

“For being a shaper. For wearing your clothes. For being an elf. Not for any good reason.”

“What happened?”

“Nothing good.”

He reached over and took my hand. “You’ll be all right. This training, though. You sure it’s worth it?”

“I think so.”

* * *