“Then why does it scare you more?” He lifted his free hand and tilted her chin toward him, finding her nervous gaze.

She glanced at him, then looked down. “Don’t make me do this.”

“I won’t. I promise. But I need you to know something.” Raven slid off the bed, kneeling before her. He took her face in his hands. “There is nothing about you that will make me love you less. Do you understand?”

Tears slid down her cheeks. “You love me?” she whispered, as Raven fought to catch the tears before they fell. His fingers brushed her lashes, dancing across her cheeks. She leaned into his touch, and it made him feel brave. Bold. Reckless.

“I’ve loved you since the first day we met. You found me in the trees, and you rescued me from all my fears. All my sadness. You felt like a part of my family, and I thought I knew what that meant for a really long time. Then I looked up at you from that glass coffin and I knew you were the only one who could wake me from the nightmare I’d been living in.”

Jack inhaled sharply, her forehead dipping toward his. “I couldn’t look at you in that coffin. Not until you opened your eyes. You stared up at me, and I felt like you saw me so clearly…” Jack pulled back, arms wrapping around herself. “I don’t know how to do this, Raven. I don’t know how to say this without it changing everything. I’m probably going to lose my mom over it, and if I lose you—”

“You’re not going to lose me,” he said, taking the edges of her collar in his hands. The shirt had been his, but it was definitely, definitely Jack’s now. “You could never lose me, because you’re my family.”

“Your dad is your family,” Jack replied. “He still thinks of me as Poppy, and if he finds out who I am, he could treat me differently. He could treat you differently for being with me.”

“My dad?” Raven huffed, shaking his head. “The guy who tossed me aside when it wasn’t convenient to keep me around? I’m not going to hide how I feel to make things easier for him. And I would never ask you to hide who you are.” A nod in the darkness. Raven wanted to see Jack’s face, so he reached over and flicked on the lamp beside Lily’s bed. “If you want me to know, you can tell me. If you don’t, it’s all right. We’ll eat dinner. We’ll get some rest and—”

“Sometimes I don’t feel like a girl. I mean, I’m not a girl.” Jack swallowed, looking down. “I’m a boy.”