Faolan blinked again. Then he laughed, a soundless laugh that she felt in his chest. “You’re the one who hated me!” he exclaimed. He tilted his head, smiling uncertainly, baring just a few crooked teeth. The smile shone from his eyes, though. “How could I hate you? How could I do anything but adore you? You’re brilliant.”

She kissed him.

She rushed forward a little too fast, and Faol was a little taller than anyone she’d kissed lately, so the angle was all wrong. Their noses mushed together. Orfeus shifted so their lips aligned, and kept kissing him. The mouth of the Wolf was soft and uncertain. Yielding to her.

Orfeus pulled back just a smidge and pressed their lips together, resting her hand on the sharp line of her jaw. Orfeus could take it as slow as Faol wanted.

There was time.

There wasn’t time, but here there was, with his arms going uncertainly up around her, then clutching painfully tight. Orfeus grinned savage into the embrace and kissed just a little harder, nipping at his lip. Faolan said softly into her mouth, “Oh.”

Orfeus pushed away after far too soon, regretfully. She should have used up all her adrenaline some time ago, yet her blood was singing. She wiped her mouth.

Faol blinked, looking uncertain, and Orfeus grinned and slapped him on the arm, squeezing appreciatively. “I’m bleeding everywhere,” she said.

Faol nodded, resolve coming back into his eyes. He pulled his mask down, all distant warrior, and she would bet her boots that had been, if not his first kiss, then one of his first. She was far fonder of this honourable murderer than she would normally let herself accept. “Right.”

“Later,” she said gently, and more like a question than she wanted. Faol smiled at her all tremor and tooth.

“Yes.”

They made their slow way back out of the building and to Faolan’s bike, leaned against the wall with not even an attempt made at concealment. He must have hurried. Orfeus grinned at it, then grinned at him. Faol looked away with his pale cheeks flushing red.

She settled Orfeus into the seat and sat behind, arms tight around her so she wouldn’t fall. Orfeus would be more offended by that except she really wasn’t even capable of standing without help yet. The bike lifted off the ground, skimming and weaving through the reaching branches of poplar trees, then up above, above Eldergrove’s towers, and flying towards the sun.

Orfeus drifted in and out of consciousness, held safe from falling. Faolan was a little shorter than her ideal, but no one could fault his muscle definition. She could not sleep, though, and could not run any longer from the suspicions that hounded her.