She gave him a sad smile. “Of course it is. You don’t have to pretend this is all going to turn out right. I know the odds of that happening. I know what we are up against. But I need you to acknowledge that I do. Don’t pretend with me. Don’t try to shelter me. I needed that yesterday, but today I’m someone else. I’m who I was always supposed to be, I hope. I’m strong enough to do what I have to do. I need you to be strong with me.”

He nodded slowly. “I just worry we’ve lost something since last night, and I don’t like how it makes me feel. I don’t like that you don’t think last night means something more—that maybe it doesn’t mean as much to you as it does to me. It makes me sad.”

She stepped up to him and kissed him hard on the mouth and held the kiss for a very long time. “There,” she said, stepping back. “That’s what it means to me.” She smiled at the look on his face. “But it’s over and done with, and we have to think about what’s coming. We have to leave last night behind.”

He didn’t want to leave last night behind. He wanted to build his life around it. He wanted to make it the beginning of everything. But he nodded slowly and forced himself to smile back.

“All right,” he agreed.

But it wasn’t all right and he wasn’t done with it, either, not now and not ever. That was what he promised himself as he let the matter drop.

THE DAY PASSED SLOWLY after that. Neither felt much like talking so mostly they were silent. The only exchange of words came when Panterra—assiduously studying his surroundings in an effort to stop himself from thinking about Phryne—felt it necessary to pass along information on what his instincts and tracking skills were telling him. Twice they crossed the prints of what he believed to be the cat they had seen the previous night. Although the tracks were several days old, he was taking no chances and made it a point to direct them a different way. Once, they caught sight of a solitary agenahl, huge and ponderous as it threaded the gaps between the forest trees. Seemingly out of place in such confines, it nevertheless managed its way. It did not detect their presence, and they stood perfectly still until it was well out of sight.