“Isola. I can explain,” Leelo blurted. She heard the door open behind her and felt a surge of protectiveness over Jaren, causing her to back up, as if she could shield his body somehow.

“It’s all right,” he said gently. “She already knows everything.”

Leelo turned. “Everything?” she hissed.

“Well, almost everything,” he whispered. “I figured out pretty quickly that she was the girl you told me about, the one who kept an incantu here.”

She turned back to Isola. “I’m so sorry. I know how this must look—”

“He didn’t rat you out, if it’s any consolation,” Isola said. “I put two and two together on my own. Come on. Let’s go inside and talk. It will be dark soon, and our mothers—and your cousin—will wonder where we’ve gone to.”

Leelo tried to control her breathing. Things could be worse. Sage could have been the one to find Jaren.

They ducked into the little cabin and sat on the floor, pressed so tightly together that their knees touched. Leelo’s eyes darted shyly to Jaren, and it did nothing to slow her rapid heartbeat. His hair was damp, recently washed, by the look of things, with a wave sweeping over his forehead that practically begged Leelo to push it back. He smelled like the lavender soap she’d given him. She wanted to bury her face in his chest and tell him everything she’d been feeling since the night of the festival.

Instead, she clenched her fists in her lap and willed herself to calm down. She could feel his eyes on her, though, and she wished desperately that she’d gotten here first, that she’d had him to herself for just a little longer. Because reality was sinking in. This was no longer their secret. They couldn’t pretend there weren’t consequences to their relationship anymore.

Not when one of those consequences was sitting right here, watching them.

Isola pushed her hair behind her ears. “Jaren explained to me how he ended up in the boat and washed up on shore. He said you found him in the woods, injured, and told him he could hide here.”

Leelo felt one of the hundred knots in her stomach slowly loosen. He hadn’t told Isola that she’d helped pull the boat in, at least. “It was meant to be temporary, Isola. Just until we could find a way to get him safely off the island.”

Isola nodded, but Leelo could tell she didn’t fully believe her. “When did you realize he would be stuck here till winter?”

Leelo’s eyes darted to Jaren’s. “What? He isn’t—”

“You can’t possibly think you’ll get him across the lake otherwise,” Isola said. “Even if you could find the boat, how would you get it to the water without someone seeing?”