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“There are thousands of books in here.”

“Yes.”

“And you know where all of them are?”

He gives me a look that answers the question.

“Of course you do,” I mumble.

He climbs down and holds the book toward me. The leather is worn smooth around the edges from years of handling, and unlike many of the elaborate volumes surrounding us, there’s nothing written across the cover. I turn it carefully in my hands and read the faded gold lettering along the spine.

The Orchard Beyond Winter.

I look at him. “What’s it about?”

“A man who inherits an orchard that refuses to grow.”

“That sounds depressing.”

“It isn’t.”

I raise an eyebrow.

Rhys sighs. “He spends years attempting to restore it because he believes the land is dying. Eventually, he discovers there is nothing wrong with the orchard. The trees simply require something he refuses to give them.”

“What?”

“If I tell you, there would be little point in reading it.”

I smile despite myself. “Fair.”

I open the cover and find an inscription on the first page, written in faded ink by a hand I don’t recognize.

For Rhys. Some things grow only when they are loved.

My smile disappears. When I look up, he has already turned away. I don’t ask who wrote it because I think I already know.

Rhys returns to the chair beside the fire and lowers himself into it, his movements slower now. His head drops against the leather, and he closes his eyes.

“Lie down,” I tell him. “You look exhausted.”

One eye opens.

“You kept me up entirely too late,” he says pointedly.

Heat rushes straight to the tips of my ears as memories of last night surface without invitation. “That sounds like an accusation.”

“It is.”

“You weren’t complaining last night.”

His other eye opens.

I grin.

He stares at me until I start laughing, then reaches out and catches my wrist when I pass him. I look down at his hand. Months ago, that grip would have frightened me.

Now I turn my palm upward.