“Specifically,” he says, breath hot but brief at her ear, pulling her just a little bit closer, so they can lie chest-to-chest. “About large Rifter elves?”

More dangerous than the garden variety of elf, less tame, more dangerous.

“You are precious to me,” he says. “I would have no secrets between us. You know you can tell me whatever you like, and I will still love you, no matter what it is. I will not think less of you.”

His will test her, when she asks after them or when they are no longer secrets, but he is not speaking of those. Instead, he considers her ‘I am afraid’s, her ‘I need you’s. The help he has not yet pulled a promise to agree to ask for.