Leelo began to smile, but Sage’s fingers slid lower, wrapping loosely around Leelo’s neck.

“But you’re so fragile, cousin. Anyone could break you. I know you think I’m too hard to feel like you do. But if I told you everything, if you knew the truth, it would shatter you like glass.”

“Sage—”

Sage’s hand slid away. “You might be as naive as those swans that land on a lake full of poison, but you’re still mine. And I’ll protect you, like I always have.”

Leelo’s confusion quickly turned to anger. “What aren’t you telling me, Sage?”

Her cousin’s hazel eyes were just like Aunt Ketty’s, giving nothing away. “Forget I said anything. Come on, I’m hungry.”

“Sage!” Leelo called after her, but she’d already disappeared into the Forest.

Leelo was certain now that she wasn’t the only one with secrets. And something told her that Sage’s were sinister. The kind that best stayed buried.

Chapter Thirty-Two

In the days that followed, Jaren’s entire world became sleeping and waiting for Leelo’s visits. Sleeping at least made the time go faster; the waiting was excruciating. He had only gone to bathe one more time, alone, and all it did was make him think of Leelo and her lips and her hair and her bare skin. He knew it was dangerous to start to care about a girl he’d almost certainly never see again, but it was also a welcome distraction from worrying about how he’d get off the island and what his family was doing in his absence. And, if he was being honest, a distraction from the way the trees surrounding him seemed to press a little closer at night, how the wind through the branches sounded like whispering voices, and when rain fell, it had a strange cadence, like a song.

But when Leelo came, Jaren forgot about all of that. He was able to coax a little more out of her each time, and he gathered those facts like a bird adding trinkets to its nest. He spent hours thinking of questions to ask her, so soon he knew her favorite color (blue), her favorite food (cake), and her least favorite chore (anything to do with hunting—they had that in common). And every time she left, he felt like she trusted him a bit more, and his odds of dying were lower.

One night, when she’d come to visit him after a late Watcher shift, she had actually collapsed next to him on the blanket instead of sitting with her back to the door.

“Sorry,” she’d said when she saw him looking down at her with a bemused grin. “I forgot this was your bed.”

“What’s mine is yours,” he’d said with a laugh. “Literally.”