Page 97 of Stealing Tink

I bear down too hard on the question mark, and the ink makes blotches on the page. I don’t know why this feels so important. So crucial. But there’s something about the question that bears down on me.

The Nomad grimaces. Opens his mouth, closes it, then tries again. “When I met Wendy Darling, she told me you couldn’t speak. I sent one of my officers out to find a tutor fluent in sign that very day.”

Why? I ask. Why am I so crucial to your heist that you would put in all that effort? Why not just find another faerie? You broke those out of the train easily enough.

“I didn’t want another faerie. I wanted you.”

My pen trembles in my hand.

“You’re not going to ask me why again?”

I swallow, not sure I want the answer anymore.

Over the past few days, I realize I’ve convinced myself that I can change the future. For years, I believed the Nomad was hunting me down to kill me, and though that’s how our story always ends, I can’t help but wonder if he doesn’t know that. If he has no idea.

“Come with me,” he says, but he doesn’t move. Doesn’t make indication of where he means.

I cock my head in question.

“When all of this is over, when we’ve robbed the Eldest Sister and you have your voice back, I’m asking you to come with me.”

My eyes go wide. My heart stops in my chest. My pen hovers over the parchment, dripping ink.

Why? I sign after placing the ink quill down on the grass beside me. It occurs to me only afterward that I should have asked where instead.

The Nomad leans forward, placing both hands on either side of me. “Because, Wanderer. I’m tired of waiting.”

He searches my face for an answer, but all I can give him is wide eyes, a look of terror and indecision.

You barely know me, I write.

At that, the Nomad releases the wryest of chuckles. “Is that so? I’ve spent years learning you.”

My heart patters in my chest, and I write. You can spend years researching someone, chasing the person they are on paper. Years crafting them into the image of who you think they are, who you’d like them to be. But that’s all it is. An image, one that came from your head, not a reflection of who I am.

“And what is the image your mind has come up with for me?”

The question strikes deep, and not for the first time, I find myself wondering if the Nomad knows about my dreams after all.

“Come with me,” he says again, this time leaning in and whispering it in my ear. “Wherever you want to go, Wanderer, I’ll make sure you not only find your destination, but are catered to on the way. If you want a seaside cottage, it’s yours. If you want to spend the rest of your years at sea, I’ll captain the ship. If you want to hide away in a mountain, I’ll carry you to the top and never feel the need to climb back down.”

I don’t have an answer for him, but when he presses a kiss to my ear, then trails his lips down my jaw, ending a hair’s-breadth away from my lips, I don’t have a no for him either.

He pulls away first, leaving my stomach hollow.

When he turns his eyes down to my hands for my answer, I sign, and he lets out a chuckle, then runs his hands through his hair. “Well, I suppose that’s better than I’d hoped for.”

When he turns to go, I stay for a while, my hands still folded in the shape of maybe.

CHAPTER 43

He and I are alone, and he’s deepening the kiss, one hand on my back, the other on the back of my neck, pulling me in close.

“I love you,” he whispers into my mouth.

I don’t whisper it back.

He grunts, and it’s the surprised sort, pained.