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“That sounds lonely,” I say.

“I did not have the word for lonely,” he says. “It requires knowing what the alternative feels like first. I did not know that either, until fairly recently.”

I feel something in my chest tighten at that, a small, sharp ache I don’t quite know what to do with, and I reach for another piece of cheese mostly to give my hands something to occupy themselves with while I let it settle.

“And now?” I ask.

“Now I have made you a picnic that consisted primarily of cheese,” he says, “and I do not regret a single part of it.” A pause. “I think that means something has changed.”

I feel my throat go tight, unexpectedly, the sort of ache that comes from being handed something far more honest than you were prepared for.

“I’m glad you’re different now,” I say, quietly.

“I am not certain different is the same as better,” he says, a little hesitantly.

“It is when it means you’re happier,” I say. “You are happier, aren’t you?”

Another long pause, longer than the first, and when he finally answers his voice has gone lower, rougher, something in it I haven’t heard before.

“I did not know what happiness was, before,” he says. “I am beginning to think I might know now.”

I don’t have anything clever to say to that, so I don’t try. I just lean in, closing the small distance the too-small blanket has already mostly closed for us, and rest my head against whatever passes for his shoulder, solid and cool and steady beneath me.

His breath hitches a little. Then he holds perfectly still. As if acting as my pillow is the most sacred duty he has ever been entrusted with.

Above us, the clouds clear, and the stars come out all at once the way they sometimes do, scattered thick across the dark, and I think, watching them, that there’s something almost too neat about it, light scattered across dark, dark holding all that light without once trying to swallow it.

“It’s beautiful,” I murmur.

“Yes,” he says, and when I glance up, I find he isn’t looking at the sky at all.

My face goes warm despite the cold night air.

“That’s a very smooth line,” I say, “for someone who thought picnics happened at night.”

“I am learning quickly,” he says.

“Where did you learn that one, then?” I ask. “Was it Hex?”

“I did not learn it,” he says. “It simply seemed true, in the moment, and I decided to say it rather than keep it to myself, the way I have with most things until recently.”

“Well, I approve of the new policy,” I say.

“Noted,” he says.

I point up at a cluster of stars I’ve never properly learned the name of, some vague constellation I half remember Big Brian pointing out years ago, and Dark follows the line of my finger, tilting his head slightly, considering it with the same careful attention he gives everything.

“Are there stars in the Shadow Realm?” I ask.

“Yes, and they are revered,” he says. “Humans came from star dust. My kind came from the darkness between them.”

“That’s either very profound or you’re teasing me,” I say. “I genuinely cannot tell which.”

“Perhaps both,” he says, and there’s something in his voice that might, if I didn’t know better, be something close to joking layered over a deep fondness.

My breath catches strangely, and I look away from him, back to the night sky because it feels safer.

“Are the constellations the same?” I ask.