Page 73 of Stealing Tink

So I let go.

Regret instantly flashes across the Nomad’s face, as if he wishes he hadn’t asked the question.

I take the pad and write down my answer. You’re a thief and a murderer, and you’ve hunted me down for years. Besides, I’ve been touched before. By hands that turned against me.

“Whose hands?” says the Nomad, staring still—not at me, not at my eyes, but at my throat.

You know whose.

He watches me carefully. “You want me to assume you’re referring to Peter. But you’re not talking about Peter, are you?”

Fear constricts my ribcage, though what I’m afraid of, I can’t quite place.

“I saw Acel touch you back in the train car,” he says. “He touched you and you smiled. It’s not just any man’s touch that causes you to flinch. It’s not just Peter.”

I respond the only way I know how, with silence.

“There’s something about me,” he says, and this time, when he makes eye contact with me, there’s something in his gaze that tells me that even if it weren’t true, there would be no convincing him otherwise. “What is it about me, Wanderer?”

Why do you call me that? I write.

I expect him to expose me for deflecting. Instead, he says, “Is that not what you are?”

There’s something about the name that hurts. Something about it that threatens to make me feel fully known, but in a way I had never figured out myself. And that almost aches more.

What did that sign mean? I write.

A flash of disappointment crosses his face, like he wasn’t ready to end this conversation. For a moment I think he won’t let me get away with it.

But then he simply says, “Light,” and rolls over and goes to sleep.

CHAPTER 31

“Light,” I whisper to the star-speckled sky. The way the moon is glowing down on us feels like approval. Like we have its blessing.

“Excuse me,” says the man lying in the grass beside me. His sandy-blond hair falls back into the grass. His eyes, previously fixed on the sky above, now stare at me with even more abundant wonder.

“Light. It’s what my name means.”

“Your real name?” He rolls onto his belly, propping himself on his forearms, his fingers intertwined as he links his hands together. “And what do I get if I guess your name correctly?”

I roll onto my side to face him, the satisfaction in me rising.

“Hmm,” I say teasingly.

“Hmm,” he replies, flopping back onto his back and staring at the sky. “Light, you say. Do I get to know what language it is?”

I smile, pressing my lips together.

“Aurora,” he guesses, still staring up at the sky.

I shake my head. “No, but that’s a prettier one.”

“I doubt that,” he says, and something in my belly flutters.

“Well, that’s too bad. Because that’s the only name I know that means light.” There’s something odd about the way he says it. Something I can’t place.

I consider telling him. But there’s a part of me that longs to keep whatever this is between us locked away in this moment. So that when I’m gone, I’ll remain in his memory as I am in this moment. A mystery he wants to unravel. A dream he longs to interpret.