"What?" I say. I thought...I thought, I don't know, maybe the Dawn and the Destroying One were the same thing? Maybe I was...I was that important?

He squats, crawling so close he's breathing up my nose. "Are you or are you not the Dawn's herald?"

"How would I know?!" I push him away, jumping to my feet, lungs heaving for open air. "Why would I know that, I don't even know what Destroyer means! Or Dawn!"

He rubs his eyes, groaning and flopping against the open backpack. "I can't believe this is happening to me."

"I don't even know what's happening to you!" I stare out across the open plain. "What's so bad about...what the mist said? I thought you wanted the Dawn to come."

"Yeah"--he sits up, shoving the cylinder water container and rabbit jerky and crackers into his bag with choppy motions--"but it's not the same as actually experiencing it." He glares at me. "Are you sure it wasn't lying? Making a joke to freak out a little Night Warrior kid?"

"I don't know. I mean...it also said it knew my parents. And that I didn't really have healing magic."

"How is that relevant?"

I fling my arms up. "Well it was right about me not having normal healing magic!"

He stands up, dirt-stained backpack swaying from his fingers.

"It talked like it knew me."

He takes out the water container, even though he just put it away.

"And it asked me about myself, then told me what I knew about myself was wrong."

He untwists the cap, and guzzles water.

"And it didn't try to attack me or lure me--" The water keeps draining into Michael's mouth. A trickle slides down his chin, dripping to the hem of his shirt. "Michael?"

He lowers the container and raises an eyebrow. "What?"

"You act like you're ignoring me."

"I'm not." He wipes his chin, pushes the backpack up his shoulder, then tips the water back up.

"Well--"

He puts a hand up, stopping me. He swallows, twice, then lowers the clear container. "So you had a mist wraither tell you your destiny when you were ten, and you've spent years having no clue what it means. Now you want to find the person who told you that." He licks his lips. "It's starting to making sense."

"It is?" My shoulders slump and I sigh. "I thought you were--I thought you didn't believe me."

He marches at me, holding out the cold container and pressing it into my chest. Condensation soaks through the thin white fabric. "I was in disbelief," he says. "But I believed you."

My lips part.

"I mean, I was in disbelief this was happening to me and this random boy I saved from the Obsidian Castle. I did believe you were telling the truth."

I stare at the curve of his forehead where it meets his dark hair, then down to his narrow eyebrows, his wide eyelashes.

He frowns. "Did you want some water? I kind of forgot to ask and just gave it to you..."

I blink. "Yeah. I...I got..." My hands float unsteadily to the container of water, brushing his fingers and gripping the cold surface. "Wait did you say something about not being interested in making more babies?"

His forehead crinkles. "Yeah like ten minutes ago. Or something. I have a terrible sense of time. Except for days, I kind of count those excessively--"

"What did you mean?"

His hands don't move from the middle of the water container, his fingers don't pull away from mine. "Exactly what it sounds like?" His eyebrows rise. "I. Am not. Interested. In making babies."

"But"--I swallow--"in what way?"

He tilts his head. "Boy, you're going to have to say it bluntly, because I am not getting what you're saying. There's more than one way to be uninterested in making babies?"

My heart rate picks up, my veins fill with river rapids that shake my skin and rush in my ears. "Blunt?"

"Yeah." He nods.

I swallow again. "I want"--I stare at his wide nose, the space between his eyes--"to kiss you." I tighten my hands around the cold container, possibly crushing Michael's thumbs and a pointer finger.

"Oh." His lips pull up into a smirk. "That kind of not interested in making babies. I get it now."

I want to drink in his eyes, but his gaze is aimed at my mouth. And it's like it's casting a spell so air won't go in me anymore and all of a sudden I can't breathe. "And I want you to want to kiss me," my voice hitches.

"Wow," he whispers, like he also can't breathe all of a sudden. "I didn't know someone raised in a prissy dark pest castle could lay it out so fast and hard."

"The last person I kissed made me want to vomit." It comes out all raspy and dry. "But you keep making me want to explode."

He shakily inhales. "That would sound dumb in any other situation. But..."

I lean forward, until the tips of his nails dig into my ribs through my shirt, and my fingers brush his gown. "But?"

"I'm just reveling in this feeling of nearly exploding."

He blinks, slow as a sunset.

"Reveling?" My limbs are trembling.

"Yeah." He leans forward, radiating warmth, and whispers, "I wanna kiss you too, even if it destroys me."

His lips melt over mine. His hands fall away, and I slide the water container to my side so our chests can meet, thin shirts hardly a barrier to the heat off his skin drawing my heart up.

An imaginary glove squeezes my shoulder. "It's worth the wait," a voice hisses. "You'll find a lovely woman someday, One--"

--well shove off, Perseverance. I imagine beams of light sprout from my shoulders, stabbing ghost-Perseverance through, launching him into the blue sky. I banish you forever.

A vapor tickles my wrist, and Michael's palm grazes mine. Mist rises from our skin; its glow dances behind my eyelids, its touch tickles my olive arms and the baby hairs of my thin bicep. The water container lingers cold in my other hand, and I wrap my arm around his back, slinking between the backpack and his clothes. He shivers to the touch.

Our lips separate, my eyes open, I'm not sure who broke us apart--maybe the wind--but he smirks at me. I smirk back. The trail of mist from our hands whispers up our sleeves, fading into the air.

He sighs. "Wow. I'm not..."

I slide my arm out from behind his back. My lips can't stop grinning.

"So that's what it's like," he says. "Is that normal?"

"Was I your first..."

He nods. "I'm super not ashamed of it."

"I didn't mention anyone shaming--"

"It was very much worth the wait."

My grin falters. "You act"--I force my cheeks up--"super confident though."

"Yeah that's called faking." He stares over my shoulder. "We should probably get moving. Before it gets dark."

"Of course." We step apart, but our hands stick together, and we just start walking like that.

"It's actually not going to get dark for a while, I just meant we should keep covering ground."

I hold out the water container in my other hand. "Can you open this?"

"Yah." He takes the lid in his free hand, twisting, and I twist it back against his force. His tongue sticks out, then the lid pops open, but with him no longer pushing and me still pushing, the container tips and half the water sloshes out, muddying the grass and most of my foot.

"Oops." I pull the container away.

Grimacing, he shakes off his wet hand. "I think this makes us officially terrible at whatever that was."