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Right. Immortality. It’s easy to forget how strange it sounds to someone who has measured her life in decades instead of centuries.

“What happens if we fix this?”

I look toward the corn. “I don’t know.”

“Do you stay like this?”

“Probably.”

“You don’t sound thrilled.”

“I’ve been twenty-nine for two hundred and thirty-five years.”

“Women pay a lot of money for that.”

I laugh.

“You joke.”

“I cope.”

“I noticed.” She resumes tracing my chest, her finger stopping directly over my heart.

Thump.

We both freeze.

Her eyes lift to mine.

Another beat hits beneath her palm.

Thump.

Not hers—mine.

“Sage.”

“I felt it.”

Thump.

Her palm flattens against my chest as if she’s afraid to move it.

My heart beats beneath her hand.

Once. Twice. Three times.

Steady… impossible.

Then I feel hers answers with the exact same rhythm.

Fuck.

She slowly sits up, keeping her hand against my chest. “So that’s new.”

“Yes.”

“Good new or horrifying new?”