Something between us has changed. I don’t know when it happened, but we’re not just business partners anymore, just temporary allies until I get my money. We’re linked by everything we’ve been through, and I suddenly realize that even if he couldn’t pay me, I’d still be on his side. That’s enough pressure to make anyone feel a little nauseous. A little like their heart is trying to find a new place to roost.

Raze laughs at my stricken expression. Any chance to get under my skin is enough for him to pounce on, even now. I can’t tell if he’s blushing, or if his face looks this pink all the time.

I frown, struggling to follow. “Forgive you for what?”

“Because... Well, when we met, I thought you were just some magical creature, like the dragon. Just a changeling.”

I wrinkle my nose, struggling to remember back to the bonfire in Gilt Row. The way I mistook his smile for charming and his attention for flattering. “A pretty changeling,” I correct, my words blurring together.

Raze snorts, but he doesn’t respond to that. “But I was wrong. I see that now. I underestimated you. I thought you were less than human, but Seelie, you’re...”

My stomach twists in knots as he searches for words, and I let my eyes drift closed to focus on their sound.

“You’re more human than anyone I’ve ever met,” he finally manages, surprising me. When I dare to sneak a glance at his face, he’s smiling strangely. “You’re passionate and funny and brilliant and terrifying. You stopped to ask what would become of the firedrake. To think of it as more than a weapon. You feel so much more than I do, and you see so much more than I do. You’re unlike anyone else, and...” This time, he doesn’t finish the sentence. For once, Raze has run out of words.

Now my stomach is doing acrobatics, flipping and flying around uncomfortably. Magic tingles in my hands, and my heart races.

It isn’t really about me, what he said. It’s about the dragon, and how it’s a living creature with feelings that doesn’t deserve the abuse that Raze suffered. For a brief second, I wonder if the dragon is safe—but it must be. He said everything was fine. But still...

No one has ever talked like that about me before.

“I—” No words seem to fit right now. “Fate,” I complain weakly. “Do you always have to be such a pain?”

Well, I never claimed to be eloquent.

Raze’s laughter pierces my ears and shakes me painfully, but I don’t care. I put up one weak hand to feign pushing him away, pretending to be offended. The light catches gold in his lashes when he throws his head back. I can’t help but join in, laughing weakly.

I realize I’m staring as our giggling subsides and look away quickly.

“I don’t have to be a pain,” Raze says, still grinning. When he notices that I’m refusing to look at him, he grabs my uninjured hand, drawing my gaze. The smile on his face teeters wildly between intentionally obnoxious and charming. “But you make it so much fun, Iselia.”