Page 6 of Storm Echo

“Oh, I’ve always wanted to visit there—it’s meant to be beautiful.” With that, Lei stood up. “Come on. I don’t need lots today.”

Rising, he fell into step beside her. She was tall enough to reach his shoulder, and he wasn’t a short man. The height suited her, everything about her suited her. Most of all the quicksilver emotions on her face, the smile that never quite left her lips. She was … radiant. “Do you visit the forest every day?”

A shake of her head. “I’ve come to see a friend of mine—yesterday, she wanted to rummage through garage sales. I’ve never done that before.”

Ivan wasn’t even sure what that was, but he wanted to hear her talk, so he asked her about it, and she regaled him with stories of dusty barns and literal garages, quirky sellers who priced everything at a dollar and others who wanted full “as new” prices for mismatched sets of cutlery or incomplete sets of retro DVDs.

It felt like a glimpse into another universe.

“I bought three small planters shaped like pouncing cats,” she confessed. “They’re painted funny colors and they weren’t expensive, but I like silly, pretty things.”

Ivan had no concept of silly and pretty, but he didn’t want her to go quiet, didn’t want her smile to fade, so he said, “One of the humans in my apartment complex has a cat who’s often in the shared green space. I watch her when I’m outside—she can spend entire hours napping in the sun, then move like a flash with zero buildup.”

A glance from under her lashes. “Do you like cats?”

“Pets weren’t a concept under Silence.”

Husky laughter that turned into giggles she couldn’t seem to stop.

Ivan didn’t understand joy. He’d never been Silent—that ship had sailed the first time the drug entered his mother’s bloodstream while he lay cradled inside her womb, his mental pathways warped before they could form—but the tools of Silence suited him. He preferred to keep his distance from the world, and from the ties of emotion.

Such things led only to weakness and to loss and pain.

The sole place he’d failed was with his family. They’d become part of him through their steadfast refusal to give up on the boy who didn’t fit, but even Grandmother couldn’t erase his childhood. He would forever be the monster the drug had created—there was no way to alter that. And the monster didn’t comprehend joy.

But it sighed listening to her laugh. “What’s so funny?”

“Tell you later,” she said, her smile a sparkle in her eyes. “I want to show you a gorgeous waterfall—it’s this way.”

He let her lead him, even though he’d already explored the area. But he’d never seen the natural formation through her eyes. She pointed out how the spray captured rainbows, and how the water was as clear as glass, the stones beneath polished to a smooth shine.

“I like swimming,” she told him. “But not in water this cold.” Dipping a toe in after slipping off her shoe, she shivered. “Makes my fur bristle.”

At that moment, her gaze held a wildness that he couldalmostidentify, but then it was gone, and she was putting her shoe back on. “I have to meet my friend. We’re going to the theater—she bought the tickets two months ago.”

Ivan was considered smooth and sophisticated by the vast majority of people he met, the mask one he’d long perfected, but he found he couldn’t put it on with her. It was as if it didn’t exist, as if he could only interact with her in his rawest form.

“Will you meet me again?” he asked with no effort to hide his need to see her.

A long look, no smile now, just an intensity of focus.

He didn’t breathe until she said, “I’ll come tomorrow night.”

Ivan didn’t know what to offer her, how to make sure she didn’t change her mind. “I found a small cave while I was exploring. It has the imprint of a fossil.”

“Really?” She rose up on her tiptoes, rocked back, her expression alight. “Oh, we can go see that.”

And that was exactly what they did the following night, spending an hour on a gentle walk there, and an hour on the walk back. It was full dark on a moonless night, but he had a flashlight … and he was fairly certain Lei could either see in the dark or close to it. Despite his compulsive need to know her, he didn’t aggressively dig for more information.

She was … important to him, and they were too new, too fragile, for him to risk fracturing it. It was disturbing to him to admit that she’d walked right past his defenses as if they didn’t exist, but he couldn’t make himself be sorry about it. Not when she existed, this bright and wild creature who seemed to like him.

Just him. No mask. No sophistication. No Mercant power. Just Ivan.

“I can’t come tomorrow night,” she told him at the end of their time together, her teeth sinking into her lower lip. “I promised my friend I’d spend the time with her.”

That—the importance of keeping promises—was a thing Ivan did understand. “Do you have time in the afternoon?” It was easier to ask this time, with less risk of rejection. “I only have half a session tomorrow.” The morning was meant to be brutal, the afternoon intended for rest and repair.

That dazzling smile that did things to him that should’ve been impossible. “Yes. I was just going to forage for wild herbs to make a special oil. I could do that another day.”

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