I cleared my throat, wishing in vain that my face wouldn’t flush—but heat was already gathering in my cheeks.

He pulled the towel off his head, his hair sticking in every direction, and blinked lazily. “Na?”

“We need to talk.”

“Hnn.” He tossed the towel on the floor. “Now?”

“Yes, now.” I picked up his discarded towel—trying very hard not to glance across the thick muscles of his thighs. “Get dressed and we’ll talk.”

“I am dressed.”

“You’re practically naked.”

He shrugged, and I huffed. What I’d give to be that unselfconscious.

I’d asked him early on if he needed supplies to wash his clothes and maintain his armor, and he’d smugly informed me that he had vīsh for that. I hadn’t believed him until he’d run a crimson spell across his clothes and I’d watched the dust and dirt sift down to the floor. The scuffs and tears had mended beneath another spell. A third had smoothed the scratches in his armor.

Talk about convenient.

“I’ve been thinking,” I began, twisting his towel nervously. “Those sorcerers use Arcana designed specifically to stop your magic. But if you and I combine magic, it becomes something new. Their abjuration shouldn’t work on it.”

“I tried, vayanin.”

“I know.” I ignored a slash of hurt at his reminder of our weak trust. “I understand that you don’t want me to know every single thing in your head. But maybe we can get to a point where you can share some thoughts with me, the way I do with you.”

He was silent as I strangled the towel. Realizing what I was doing, I set it on the foot of the bed.

“I was thinking …” I said again, my words slowed by hesitation. “We spend so much time together, but I don’t know very much about you. And you don’t know much about me either. Maybe if we talk more … about ourselves … we can know each other better and trust each other more.”

He gazed up at me, dark brows drawn in thought. My hand rose toward his face, then stuttered. I shyly brushed a damp lock of his hair out of his eyes, half expecting him to bat my hand away.

He merely watched me, and I knew exactly what he’d meant when he’d talked about “thoughts in your eyes.”

“What do you think?” I asked.

“Hnn.”

Rolling my eyes at his unhelpful murmur, I straightened another piece of his tangled hair. He didn’t seem to mind, and his messy mop had been making me itch to grab a hairbrush for months. As I tugged another lock in a more natural direction, my fingers brushed against one of his small horns.

Curious, I pressed the pad of my thumb to the dull point.

“Our horns show our age.”

I froze. He looked up at me.

“Child demons have no horns.” His voice was low, vibrations sliding under my skin. “The oldest demons have the biggest horns.”

Remembering Tahēsh and the huge horns sprouting from his hairless skull, I again traced the dark, bone-like protrusions poking through his hair, estimating their length—or lack thereof.

“You’re young,” I whispered. I’d suspected, but now I knew for sure. He was an adult, but only just. Same as me.

His eyes glowed faintly. “Eterran has lived my years many times.”

“How long do demons live?”

He shrugged. “We live until we die.”

Not a helpful answer, though if their society was as violent as it sounded, old age might be a rare occurrence.

The shadows in his eyes mesmerized me—the hidden knowledge, the cunning and savagery, the experience and survival instincts honed from years of struggle and danger. My fingers slid down, brushing across his temple, his cheekbone.

“What is the Naventis that Eterran talked about?” I asked.

His gaze trailed across my face, then down. He tugged at a decorative button on the bottom of my knitted sweater. “It is a gathering of Dīnen. The stories say that once, all Dīnen came to talk, and the payapis would come too.”

“Payapis?”

“The oldest female demons who will have no more young. They are very powerful.”

“Are they queens?”

“They punish females who are too much trouble, but they give wisdom, not commands.” He canted his head, his cheek pressing into my hand. “There are stories that they killed foolish Dīnen who ruled too long, but that was the before time.”

The before time … before the onset of summoning, after which humans stole Dīnen away long before a demon matriarch might need to eliminate unruly leaders.

“What is the Naventis like now?” I asked, almost afraid of the answer. My fingertips drifted to the corner of his jaw, and I shifted closer, standing between his knees.

“Dīnen of the first rank gather to eat and talk and say compliments to themselves. Sometimes Dīnen of the second rank will come, but they are lucky to last a season before they disappear to the hh’ainun world.”

“And the third rank?”

“The Ninth, Tenth, and Eleventh Houses do not have Dīnen anymore. They are summoned every day, every night. Gone, gone, gone. No one knows who holds the Dīnen power. They disappear too fast.”

I swallowed hard. “And the Twelfth House?”

“We do not go to the Naventis because the Lūsh’vēr and Dh’irath will kill us.”

“But you did.”

He grinned, flashing his pointed canines. “My plan was good. After I warned them, I disappeared and they could not find me. They searched and searched, and I laughed.”

His amusement was contagious and I grinned back. Without realizing what I was doing, I leaned closer—leaned into him, my weight settling against his chest. My fingers had curled around the back of his neck.

His hand fisted around the hem of my sweater, and he pulled my hips into his stomach.

I jolted, my trance breaking. My breath halted in my lungs, my heart surging. Rigid with sudden inner turmoil, I forced myself to inhale—and got a nose full of his hickory scent. His warmth was soaking into me, his body hard and strong as I leaned into him, and I didn’t want to move my hand from the nape of his neck.

Steeling myself, I withdrew my hands and stepped away. My sweater slid easily from his grasp, and he made no attempt to pull me back—though he watched me with strangely somber eyes.