“I know Endla is your home. It’s all you’ve ever known. Your entire life is here. But I can’t help thinking that if you stay here, you’ll end up marrying someone you don’t love to appease your family. Or you’ll end up alone because you refuse to settle for a life like that, and you deserve to share your heart with someone, if that’s what you want. Which is not to say I think you love me, of course.” He started to ramble, his thoughts tangling up like string, when she stopped him with a hand on his.

“Jaren, I...”

“I know. Your family. But your mother could come with us. Sage and Ketty wouldn’t want to, but you said yourself that your mother isn’t like the other Endlans.”

“She isn’t well. And she would never leave her sister.”

“Even if it meant reuniting with Tate?” He almost hated to bring the boy up, dangling him like bait before Leelo, but he knew how much her little brother meant to her. “I can’t promise we’ll find him, but I promise we’ll spend every day trying.”

Her eyes flickered with pain at the mention of Tate. “We would be a danger to him out there. That’s why he had to leave. Because Endlan magic could hurt him. Because my magic could.”

“You would never hurt him, Leelo.”

She tensed. “You haven’t seen a drowning. You don’t know what this Forest is capable of.”

“I know you.”

Leelo softened at his words, but there was doubt in her voice. “We’ve known each other for such a short time, Jaren.”

“I’ve spent more time with you than I’ve spent with anyone outside my immediate family in my entire life. Please don’t diminish what we have because you’re afraid. I’m afraid, too.”

She sighed in frustration. “You’re asking me to go against everything I’ve ever known.”

“That’s not what I’m doing.”

She shook her head. “I’m starting to wonder if you really understand what I’ve been telling you. Endla protects us, but it also protects you. Do you think my people would have spent generations on a small island if we had a choice in the matter?”

“Leelo, up until a few months ago, I’d never even heard of Endla. If your people were so dangerous, the news would have traveled to Tindervale. You have so little experience—”

She leaped to her feet, nearly smacking her head on the ceiling. “So that’s what you think about me? That I’m some sheltered, gullible child?”

“No. That’s not what I mean at all.” Jaren attempted to run his fingers through his hair, but they snagged painfully on the knotted strands. “This wasn’t how this was supposed to go.”