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The moths are already rising.

Tonight, with no moon and no storm, there are more of them than I’ve ever seen. The entire floor of the hollow lifts off the fungus in slow green spirals until the air between the old trees is filled with soft, drifting light. It’s like standing inside a snow globe someone filled with stars.

Wren doesn’t say a word. She just holds my hand so tightly it hurts.

A moth floats down and lands on her shoulder. She goes completely still, just like I do. It sits there for a long time, its wings folding and unfolding, lighting up the purple ends of her hair. Then it lifts away.

She turns to me, and her eyes are wet.

I can’t hold it in anymore. I don’t even want to.

“I love you,” I say.

She blinks.

I cup her face. “I love the way you argue with maps. I love that you keep a list of my excuses. I love that you follow in my footsteps without being asked. I love you, Wren. I’m not going to stop.”

She launches herself at me. I catch her because I’ll always catch her, and she wraps her arms around my neck and her good leg around my waist.

“I love you too,” she says into my neck. “I think I fell for you the moment you ducked through that doorway. Grumpy, green, and gorgeous. I didn’t stand a chance.”

A rumble starts in my chest, loud and deep. I don’t stop it.

She laughs and presses her palm flat against my heart. “There it is.”

We stand at the rim of the bowl, wrapped around each other while the moths swirl up into the dark.

Back at the cabin, I build up the fire, and she curls into the corner of the couch with a blanket. I sit on the floor in front of her, my back against the cushions, while she rests her chin on top of my head.

“Holt,” she says. “About the report.”

I go still.

I can hear her heart, steady and sure. She isn’t deciding now. She decided a while ago.

“If I put those moths in the public report, it ends up in a brochure,” she says. “Then they’re gone. I won’t do that. Not to them, and not to you.” She slides her arms around my neck from behind and holds on. “I’m going to help you protect them. You’re not doing this alone anymore.”

I’ve guarded that bowl alone since the first summer after I changed. And now this woman is wrapped around me on my couch, telling me I don’t have to.

I don’t trust my voice, so I reach into my pocket and pull out the carving. I finished it while she napped. I hold it up over my shoulder on my open palm.

She takes it carefully, with two fingers.

“A wren,” she breathes. “Holt. You carved every single feather. And it has an eye stripe.”

“Wrens have eye stripes,” I mutter.

She laughs, wobbly, and kisses me upside down over my shoulder. Her nose bumps my tusk. It’s perfect. Then she tucks the little bird into the pocket of my flannel, right over her heart.

“I’m never letting go of this,” she says.

I watch the fire and think about the end of September.

Her posting ends with the summer. The funding for a second officer only comes through if this trail is a success. And she goes where the work is. She told me so herself.

I won’t stand in her way. Not ever. But I’m going to give her every reason I can find to stay.

I get up, pull her laptop off the table, and set it in her lap.