[ Bastien squeezes his hand back, and for a few moments doesn’t relent. He’d like to be a good enough person to not be pleased about this or, barring that, a cool enough person not to need it.

But he’s neither. He smiles. Soothed at first, peaceable and content, but then it slides by degrees into something just a little wolfish, while his hand slips down By’s neck to curl fingers into his shirt collar. ]

You are mine. You’ll go to visit Alexandrie, and you’ll check in on your wife, and you’ll have adventures without me—sometimes—rarely— [ teasing ] —and do all the things you were born to do. I want you to have everything. But when you say you are going home, you’ll mean that you’re coming to me. Promise.