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I looked at him.

He exhaled and glanced away for half a second before meeting my eyes again.

"Not because I don't want to," he said. "Believe me, reina. It's just..."

He hesitated, and something uncertain passed across his face. For once, he didn't look amused or smug or completely sure of himself.

"I like this," he said. "I like the wait. I like having something left to look forward to."

I studied him for a moment.

"Jax," I said. "Silas—"

"I know."

He didn't look away.

"I've got a very good nose, remember? Rain and pine. Every morning." He reached up and brushed another leaf from my hair. "I told you. I'm very evolved."

"I'm serious."

"So am I."

The grin was gone now.

"I'm not stupid, reina. I know what I'm looking at when I look at you, and I know this isn't something you can put in a box and hand to one person." His shoulders moved in a small shrug. "I don't need to be the only one. I just need to be one."

I didn't know what to say.

There was nothing in my life I could compare it to, nothing that told me what the correct answer was supposed to be. So instead of trying to find one, I pulled him down and kissed him again.

Afterward we stayed there while the forest darkened around us. His head rested against my chest, and I ran my fingers through his hair, picking out leaves and pine needles one by one.

The curfew horn finally sounded at moonrise, long and low from the walls.

We both startled.

Then we looked at each other and started laughing again.

We scrambled to our feet, and Jax insisted on helping me back into my jeans with far more involvement than the situation required. By the time we were dressed, we were both still grinning.

Then we ran.

We made our way back through the darkening trees hand in hand, stumbling over roots and laughing whenever one of us nearly lost our footing. By the time we came out of the Wood and crossed into the long grass beneath the walls, the first lamps were being lit along the battlements above us.

At the postern gate, Jax stopped and turned toward me. He reached into my hair, his fingers brushing lightly through it, and when he drew his hand back, a single copper-gold leaf rested between his fingers.

For once, he didn't make a joke. He studied the leaf for a moment, then folded it carefully and slipped it into the inside pocket of his jacket.

"Evidence," he said at last, giving me a wink before disappearing through the gate.

I went to the Archive the next morning still smiling. There was another leaf caught somewhere in the back of my hair that I hadn't noticed, and I was halfway through wondering how long it had been there when I pushed open the great doors.

The smile disappeared almost immediately.

There was no tea waiting at my table.

It was such a small thing that I might not have noticed it twelve weeks ago, but by now the cup had become part of my mornings. Every day at eleven, there was tea waiting for me at the long table nearest Ronan's desk, always with milk and no sugar, and always far too hot to drink when I first sat down. That morning, the table was bare.