Saints, was her brother dead along with her father? He was about to change the subject when she finally sat back down again. Before she could stop him, he moved the blanket so that it was covering her legs, too.

She cast him a look he couldn’t read. “I have one brother and a cousin who’s like a sister to me. Sage. She can be...” She was quiet for a moment, choosing her words carefully. “Well, she can be prickly. But she’s family.”

Jaren smiled. “My youngest sister, Sofia, isn’t so much prickly as sticky, like one of those burrs that gets caught in your hair. She’s always getting into trouble and dragging you along with her.” As he talked about Tadpole, then Story and Summer, Leelo seemed to relax, even smiling from time to time. She kept her hand near her knife, but she wasn’t coiled like a snake anymore. If he could just get her to look at him as a person, not a threat from the outside, maybe he really could get back to his family.

Eventually, he couldn’t help but yawn, even though he’d napped through most of the evening.

“I should go,” Leelo said, removing the blanket from her legs and tucking it around him with surprising care. “My shift ended, and I’ll be expected at home.”

“When will you be back?” He hadn’t meant it to sound so needy, but her mouth quirked in the smallest grin.

“When I can,” she said, and slipped out into the darkness.

Chapter Twenty-Six

By the time Leelo slid into bed next to Sage, it was well past midnight. She’d have to be up in five hours for her shift. She would search for the boat on her next day off. Based on Isola’s reaction, she didn’t think anyone would offer up its location freely.

Leelo rested her head on her pillow and closed her eyes. After talking to Isola, Leelo had determined to put an end to her problem. She couldn’t risk being caught and exiled. Her mother wouldn’t survive it. She had sharpened her knife before she went to the little hut, steeling herself for the spray of blood when she slit Jaren’s throat. That had seemed like the quickest way of taking his life, though the thought of all that blood made her woozy.

She had knelt down next to him for several minutes, listening to his breathing to make sure he was truly asleep and not pretending. She could feel the heat from his body, and it reminded her of Tate, how he always seemed to burn hotter than she did, so that even on the coldest nights she didn’t need a warm stone in her bed if he was with her.