“What if he catches me?” I counter, which feels like a totally valid reason for me to stay in his room. To buy myself more time with him. “He’s probably going to have a heart attack if he sees me leaving your room like this.” I gesture down to my little silk dress, and Cyrus very deliberately shifts his gaze up to some point over my head. “And we’ll both be in trouble.”

Cyrus clears his throat. “Then—”

“Let’s just wait it out until he leaves,” I tell Cyrus, squinting into the peephole again. Then I stifle a yawn with the back of my hand. Now that all my adrenaline has leaked out of me, exhaustion has started pressing in on my eyelids and my brain, pulling my body to the nearest, softest thing: which happens to be the bed in the middle of the room. “Do you mind if I take a nap while we wait?” I ask Cyrus.

He blinks. “Yes. I mean—no, I don’t mind. That bed’s mine. Feel free to …” He waves toward the bed, having seemingly forgotten the English language for a few seconds.

The blankets are luxuriously soft when I slip inside them, my head sinking back against the pillows. Cyrus switches off the main lights, leaving on only the floor lamp. Then he grabs a thick, battered book from his suitcase, flipping it open to the bookmarked page, and settles down on the carpet beside me, his shoulders level with the bed.

Xindong.

Another new word I’ve picked up on the trip. It means, literally, that the heart is moved by something—or more often, someone. A sensation firmer than butterflies in your stomach but more fleeting than love. Throughout the trip, I’ve felt my heart move multiple times, and they were all because of Cyrus.

I felt it when he bent down to help me slide my heels off and apply the Band-Aid, the warmth of his fingers so gentle on my skin. I felt it when he stretched his palm out to let me draw over it. I felt it on the race up the Yellow Mountain, in those moments when he’d shielded me like it was instinct. I felt it when he offered me his sunglasses, and when he set the flower crown on my head. And again, only earlier tonight, when I saw him in the trees. But those were all light movements, small fluctuations, easy enough to dismiss.

Yet now, watching him in the soft orange light, his head bowed as he turns the page, the shift inside my chest feels permanent. It’s a movement so deep it sends shock waves through my system, making my very bones ache. I’m gripped by the overpowering urge to do something reckless, to reach across the space and run my fingers through his hair.