Magic, I say. It is some sort of magic.
—Miandre, 15
CHAPTER NINETEEN
JASE
My stomach quivers oddly. How can I be nervous? But I am. I am a lot of things I never expected to be. I want th
e moment to be perfect. “We don’t have to do this now. Unless you’re ready?”
“I’ve been ready since the first time I kissed you, Jase Ballenger.”
I smile. “I doubt that.”
“Almost the first time,” she concedes. “But I am ready now. We’ll take it slow.”
She reaches out and pulls my shirt free from my trousers. I help her lift it over my head.
Her fingertips brush along my chest as if she can feel the feathers of my tattoo.
I swallow, wondering how slow I can take this.
She looks up at me, and I am lost in golden pools.
I remember the words she said to me just minutes ago.
I want to grow old with you, Jase.
Every one of my tomorrows is yours.
I bend forward, my lips meeting hers.
Bound by the earth,
Bound by—
* * *
“We’re ready for you.”
I startled awake. Caemus was staring down at me. “Still needing naps?” he asked.
It was his way of saying I wasn’t ready.
“I wasn’t sleeping. Just thinking.”
He snorted. “Oh. Is that what that was?”
“I’ll be right up,” I said.
He turned and started back up the cellar steps. Maybe I wasn’t one hundred percent yet, and sometimes I was dragging by the afternoon, but if I spent one more day wondering where Kazi was, I would go insane. My dreams wouldn’t sustain me. I needed her. I needed to know she was safe.
I pulled off my shirt so it wouldn’t accidentally get stained with dye. The settlement had already worked hard enough to pull together clothes for me. I didn’t want to ruin a good shirt that had come off someone else’s back.
Caemus stopped halfway up the stairs and turned to look at me. “You talk in your sleep,” he said. “But I already knew. I figured it out when you were here building the settlement. You two seemed inevitable. That’s how it is with some folks.”
I kept my eyes fixed on the shirt in my hands. I couldn’t talk about this. “I told you, I’ll be up in a minute.” I snapped the shirt out and began folding it, carefully creasing the sleeves, pulling on the collar, making sure everything was even and perfect. I shook it out and folded it again.