Tam thought about it for a while, then finally, about halfway home, said, “We could just move.” It was hard to get out, but it was the only solution he could see. It seemed inevitable that Suchi had been telling people—well, the truth. Tam kept a fairy lover at his house in the woods. And he couldn’t blame her, considering what she’d been through. What else could they do?

“I saw that,” said Aeron.

Tam frowned. “Saw what?”

“Under here.” Aeron reached out and tapped Tam on the chest, just to the left. “The way your heart cracked when you said it.”

Tam blinked against a sudden burning sensation in his eyes.

“This has always been your home,” said Aeron, as if it were really that simple. “It will always be your home.”

Tam wanted to agree, wanted to believe. But, “I would choose you over it any day. And there's nothing we can do, if Suchi tells everyone.”

“We're hardly powerless.”

Tam frowned even harder.

Aeron said, “Perhaps I could live in the tree-cellar for a while. My kind prefer underground, after all.”

“For sleeping.” The thought of Aeron hiding himself any more than he did, of him not coming out into the garden, not being able to even stretch his wings when he already couldn’t flybout properly, lit an angry fire in Tam’s middle. He straightened his spine and stuck out his chin, resolved. “No. You're right. We're not powerless. I'm being silly.”

“As usual,” said Aeron, a slight smirk pulling at his pretty lips.

“You love it,” came out before Tam could stop it. They hadn’t said it again, not since that night when Aeron had told him that he didn’t know what love was.

But Aeron just smiled and said, “Yes. I do.”