>
He was starting to feel like it would matter alot. He liked her, and he didn’t think it was just because he was so overwhelmingly grateful for company. She was just really easy to like.
He made that telepathic rumble-mumble again and gestured with his head, indicating the cages on the other side of the cavernous room.
>
The best he could do was send her a sense of him helping her keep her balance while walking across some slick stepping stones in a river. Maybe she couldn’t make the crossing without him, but he could always help her over.
He nudged her attention towards the animals and felt her awareness immediately turn to follow his. He got a distant sense of her pleasure and interest at how all this was working.
They were stuck in one of the worst situations anyone could be in, and he was actually making her feel a tiny bit better ... and that madehimfeel better than he had in a long, long time.
He worked left to right, introducing her to the animals.
First, the cats with their chirping, melodic cries. Even their minds felt silky to the touch, smooth with confidence and sometimes bristly with opinions.
Then the—
> Iz said with pure delight.
She had picked the word up off the surface of his thoughts, and he hadn’t even known that was possible. He’d certainly never done it before.
He needed to figure out what that meant, but first, he needed to defend his choice to give these majestic, mournful-looking beasts a name that made them sound like the kind of stuffed animals you could win at a carnival.
> he said weakly. >
>
>
> He could hear the smile in her voice. >
>
Her tone sharpened. >
Her words seemed to crack through some kind of protective shell around his heart.
Every minute, it was like she did something else to draw him back to being a person.
> he said softly. >
> Iz said somberly.
It struck him that an hour ago, he would never have been able to even think of a complicated, jokey question, let alone articulate it in a way someone else could understand.
He swallowed. >
Iz studied the diaphanous, shimmering creatures who looked like animated ribbons twirling and gliding with the wind.
>
>
He was the only magical creature down here that Logan had named. When he’d first come, Sebastian had only had Nathaniel and the air-snakes, and the air-snakes had just been a multicolored blur of twirling activity that Logan couldn’t tell apart.
By the time he could, giving them individual names didn’t seem as important.