But in a moment I stopped caring, because he blurted out, “You said—Luisa, you said Jack got at Luisa because—because she let—”

I gawked at him in outrage. “You think I’m going to drain you? Here’s news for you, Lake, if I wanted to—”

“No!” he yelled. “I think I’m going to—”

I didn’t let him finish, rising to a proper howl. “What, like one of the bloody mals?”

“No!” he said hurriedly, raising his hands as he backed away from me.

“That’s right, no,” I said—I don’t think I literally had steam coming off me, but I certainly felt as though I did—“so get back over here and kiss me again, and if you do try to drain my mana, I’ll tear off one of the doors and beat you senseless.” Orion heaved an enormous gasp like I’d hit him in the belly, and came across the pavilion in a rush towards me.

I’d grown two inches this year, but he’d grown six, and when he gripped my arms and pulled me in, with all his strength and power, I had a dizzy top-of-the-roller-coaster moment of wait I’m not ready—of course I’d managed to completely avoid that while I’d been busy talking him into it—but then he was kissing me, and the roller coaster went and I was gone along with it, flying between terror and delight. We got my t-shirt awkwardly pulled over my head, each of us with one hand involved in the project, and he squeezed his eyes shut and pulled me in closer to kiss me, I think so he didn’t embarrass himself by gaping at my breasts. But the shock of being up against him like that, all of our naked skin pressed so close, ran through me, and I stopped kissing him and started fighting with my old knotted string belt, because I wanted more, more, more of that, yes, so desperately.

He backed up a step to undo his own belt and wrestle himself out of his trousers—along with his secret pet mal, and I did start laughing helplessly, possibly in hysterics, but thankfully he thought I was just laughing about how my stupid belt wouldn’t come undone, and he grabbed it on either side of the knot and said, “Now untie, open by,” which had no business working, but did. My combats fell straight down and puddled round my ankles, since I’d bought them two years ago off the biggest senior boy who hadn’t anyone else willing to buy them, and I tripped over them while I was heeling my Velcro sandals off.

We tumbled together down onto our heap of clothing. Orion was panting as he carefully lay down on me full-length, bracing himself up on his forearms. I was deeply preoccupied with having him between my legs, the feeling inside my own body, a drumbeat pulsing sensation already going, and then the bastard looked down at me with his entire heart crammed into his eyes and his face and said, barely a whisper, “Galadriel.”

I hate my name, I’ve hated my name my whole life; everyone who ever said it and looked at me and smiled, it’s packed full of their smiles. Mum was the only one who didn’t think it was a good joke. Even she wouldn’t have saddled me with it if she hadn’t been a shattered child herself at the time, clinging to a scrap of dreaming that had helped her make it out of the dark, without thinking about what it would mean to make me carry that name around. But Orion said it like he’d been holding it in his mouth for a year, an unreal vision he hardly believed he’d found, and I wanted to cry and also thump him at the same time, because I didn’t want to like it.

“Don’t get soppy on me, Lake,” I said, trying not to let it wobble.

He paused and then gave me a wide, obnoxious smirk, settling himself down on his forearms as if he meant to make himself comfortable. “We might not make it tomorrow, right? So if this is my only chance—”

“Your chances are rapidly diminishing,” I said, and then I locked my leg over his and twisted him over with me on top, and he let out something between a laugh and a desperate gasp for air, and caught my hips, and after that we were just gone, an endless lush wonderful grappling as we arranged ourselves—the slide of his thigh against the inner skin of my own, the urgent sensation of his hardened muscled body working so perfectly with mine. We hadn’t very much idea of what we were doing—I’d got all sorts of detailed and educational materials from Mum obviously, but the pictures and diagrams and descriptions didn’t really convey anything of what it was actually like trying to fit two bodies together. I don’t think Orion had even as much of an idea as I did; I’m sure there was a sensible amount of sex ed in his past, and equally sure he’d ignored it entirely.

But we didn’t need any real idea—there wasn’t any goal in mind, I was so preoccupied with the dizzy glee of having dived in that I didn’t care about getting anywhere. Which was just as well, because he came less than five minutes into the festivities, and then went into a spiral of writhing and apologies until I punched him in the shoulder and said, “Come on, Lake, if that’s the best you’ve got, I’m leaving you and going to lunch,” and he laughed again and kissed me some more and then followed my pointed hints until I’d had an equally good time, and then he moved back up on top of me and we moved together and it was—too many things to name all of them, with the sticky physical pleasure the least of them, far behind the sheer relief of walls tumbling down, giving in to my own hunger, the joy of feeding his, and if that hadn’t been enough, the unbelievable bliss of not thinking, of not worrying, for at least one glorious stretch of mindlessness.

Which worked really effectively until afterwards, when we were lying together sweaty and, at least in my case, incredibly pleased with myself: I felt I’d accomplished something unique and magical, that, unlike all the other actually unique and magical things I can do, wasn’t horrifying or monstrous in the least. I was draped over his chest and he had his arms round me, which would become intolerably uncomfortable at some point that wasn’t now, and then he sucked in a deep gasping breath and said, “El, I know you don’t want to talk about—if we make it out of here, but I can’t—” and his voice was cracking on the edge of tears, not just leaky sentiment but like he was barely holding on to keep from bursting into sobs, so I couldn’t stop him, and because I didn’t, he said, “You’re the only right thing I’ve ever wanted.”

I had my cheek pillowed on him, and you couldn’t have paid me to look him in the face at that moment. I stared hard at the drain instead, from which any number of helpful maleficaria could have burst and didn’t. “If no one’s mentioned this to you before, you’ve got really odd taste,” I said, and wished I didn’t mean it quite as much as I did.

“They have,” he said, so flatly I did have to look at him. He was staring up into the dark recesses of the pavilion ceiling with a muscle jumping along the side of his jaw, a blind look in his face. “Everyone has. Even my mom and dad…They always thought something was wrong with me. Everyone was always nice to me, they were grateful, but—they still thought I was weird. My mom was always trying to get me to be friends with the other kids, telling me I had to control myself. And then when they gave me the power-sharer and I drained the whole enclave…”