"Fine," Soren said. "Different question. What happens now?"
"Now you decide what I am."
"I know what you are. You're the shadow that sleeps under my bed and reorganizes Maren's heat corner."
He brushed her fingers off his collar. "The question is what you're allowed to do."
Yara's ears came up. "Allowed?"
"Allowed."
"Master." She sounded genuinely charmed. "I'm a primordial. I opened a door across the veil."
"And you called me master for a year before I knew any of that." Soren held her eyes. "So either that word means something or it was theater too. Pick one."
The shadows on the yard stopped moving.
"That's cruel," Yara said quietly.
"That's the question."
◆◆◆◆
She was silent long enough that he started counting it.
Then she went down on both knees on the seal, which he had absolutely not asked for, and put her hands palms-up on her thighs.
"It means something," Yara said. "Ask."
"Get up."
"No."
"Yara."
