I face him.

  Our faces are so close, we're breathing the same air.

  "You don't owe me anything," I tell him.

  Zan cocks his head to one side. "That's true. But you didn't owe me anything either, did you?"

  "That's different."

  "Is it?" He shrugs that speaking shrug again. "As you like."

  Argh. "Then why?"

  I expect him to reply with something like "why not?" as my mentors would have, and I already have an answer ready.

  But instead Zan says, "Because I should have done it before, and I want to believe it's not too late."

  My gaze searches his. "You didn't owe me then, either," I say softly. "Don't chain yourself to me out of guilt."

  I've had more than enough of invisible and tangible shackles.

  Zan's eyes narrow. "It's not a chain. It's an opportunity."

  "To get yourself killed?" I demand.

  "To see if I can live a life I can be happy with," he snaps. "Can you imagine what that would look like, for you?"

  I blink a few times.

  I'm worried he's not being honest with me, or with himself—that he's actually expecting to gain from this in the sense of doing one final act to make him feel reconciled with his life so he can feel comfortable dying at last. Which makes me angry, but in more of a muddying way than a clarifying way, so I'll let that simmer.

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  And truthfully answer, "No."

  What does happiness look like for a sage? For me?

  I don't know the shape of freedom.

  But maybe it looks like a cottage on a mountainside.

  As if following my thoughts, Zan admits, "I can't either. But this—" He gestures at the cottage "—can be where you start to think about it. That's why it's here."

  "And what about you?" I ask. "Maybe you don't know because you've never had a space that felt like yours, and if anything, by rights this cottage belongs to you. I can live in the temple, the gods know I'm used to it—"

  "No," Zan snaps.

  The vise that had only begun to constrict my chest with my own words eases.

  Still, I step even closer to him, our noses practically touching, and echo dangerously, "No?"

  Zan scowls. "You deserve to have a house for once in your life that feels like a home."

  I poke him in the chest; that rush again, though smaller. "Well then so do you!"

  We glare at each other for a minute.

  Zan's sapphire eyes glitter, and my breath catches.

  His eyes swoop down—to my lips or my pulse, I'm not sure.

  And then he turns. Not stepping back, exactly, or away from me, but so we're side by side.

  My heart is thundering. I clear my throat. "We could share?"

  His eyes glance at me, back at the cottage. "That could work," he says, like we're talking about the academics of a spell structure and not that we will be living together.

  "Great."

  "That's settled then."

  "Yes."

  We both stand there awkwardly for a minute, not looking at each other.

  ...Maybe not so great.

  Zan shakes his head to clear it. "Let's go to Crystal Hollow to get what we're going to need here."

  Everything is moving too fast. "Now?"

  That was a little squeakier than I'd have preferred.

  "My cheese and jam supply is not unlimited and has taken some damage," Zan says dryly.

  I let out a breath. I guess I'm just going to have to adjust, to things happening.

  At least he knows how to motivate a girl.

  "Yora."

  He's looking directly at me again.

  "You need to move, to decide what you want," Zan says. "You haven't seen the world, but now you can. Shall we start with some more food?"

  My chest tightens, and I swallow over a sudden lump in my throat.

  Then I smile, and I find it's real.

  Zan's gaze blazes back at me.

  An opportunity, he called it.

  A second chance.

  The priests may come for me, but they're not here now.

  Zan is.

  And me, too.

  "Yes," I tell the dragon, and the glow of his eyes brightens.