The tavern was relatively empty, but not as empty as it had been a few days ago, possibly due to the fact that I’d been showing Jamie around the village for a few days, giving the villagers the opportunity to get used to him. Seated at the bar, the old widower Trent was hunched over nursing a drink and what I assumed was a bowl of soup or cereal, and just behind him, a handful of younger boys I knew by face but not by name sat around a table, trying and failing to pretend like they weren’t immensely interested in what was going on at Jamie’s table across the room.

Nobody but the tavernkeeper looked in my direction as I walked through the door, even as the howl of the storm outside announced my arrival. I was dripping wet and splattered with mud, and I could tell that I was shivering despite the fact that we were in the middle of summer, but I didn’t hesitate in walking towards Jamie.

He didn’t hear me approaching, busy with his breakfast platter and talking to Oren about something, but I didn’t wait for him to turn around and notice me.

“Jamie.”

He flinched at the sound of my voice and turned around immediately, acting more surprised than I expected him to be.

“Lena?” he said, blinking a few times as he looked up and down at me. “You’re soaked.”

“Yeah, I guess I am.” Having reached the extent of my patience for small talk at the moment, I jerked a thumb behind me. “Could we talk?”

Jamie looked confused, but nodded, scooting his chair over a little bit to clear some space for me.

“I meant alone,” I said.

“Oh. I guess we could move to another table, if that’s okay?” Jamie half-asked at Oren, who just smiled back at him.

I sighed and shook my head. “More alone than that,” I said. “You’re renting a room here, right? Can we go there?”

While I assumed that the Mediators would listen in no matter where we were, this wasn’t a conversation meant for civilian ears. I glanced over at the group of eavesdropping boys with my eyes, and Oren gave me a nearly imperceptible nod of understanding.

Oren let out a loud laugh and reached over to clap Jamie on the shoulder. “Whatever this is about, it looks important,” he said. “Go, my brother. Your breakfast will still be here when you get back.”

Jamie gulped and nodded. Satisfied that he was going to follow, I turned around, and started walking towards the tavern’s rooms.

Though I and every other person in my village liked to visit the tavern at least occasionally, not many of us had any reasons to rent a room. They were only ever used by merchants who wanted to stay in town for a few days to peddle their wares, or the occasional traveller who just wanted a roof to sleep under for a night, but even though I wasn’t familiar with them, I at least knew where they were.

Opening the door at the side of the tavern, I walked into the hallway behind it.

There were three doors to the rooms. I didn’t know which one belonged to Jamie, so I simply stood and waited for him.

He didn’t follow immediately behind me, pushing open the door and hesitantly peeking inside. I raised an eyebrow at him and opened my mouth, but I didn’t trust in myself to not come off as being abrasive if I told him to hurry up.

“Which one’s your room?” I asked instead.

“The one at the far end,” he replied, almost too quiet to hear over the pounding of rain on the roof above us.

I nodded and walked over to pull the door open. Looking inside, I was surprised by how small the room was. It was square and barren, with no furniture other than a single bed pushed up against the wall that took up the length of the entire room. I supposed there wasn’t a reason for it to be bigger, and I quickly decided it wasn’t important. We didn’t need space to have a conversation.

I was about to walk inside, but when I turned to Jamie, he seemed frozen on the spot, with a look in his eyes that looked either fearful or excited. I couldn’t tell which.

“Come on,” I said, giving up on trying to coax him gently. While his shyness could be endearing at times, I couldn’t help but be a little frustrated here. “It’s important.”

Jamie nodded frantically, and though he was still hesitant about it, he started to move towards me. I let him go inside the room first, and let the door swing shut behind me as I followed behind him.

Immediately, we were faced with a problem. While the room was just big enough that it would probably be comfortable for one person, we wouldn’t both be able to stand without sacrificing our personal space.

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“Do you want to sit down?” I asked, gesturing to the bed. “This room is too small to have us both standing and I don’t want to ruin your bed with how wet I am.”

Jamie’s eyes widened. “You’re wh-” he cut himself off as he looked me up and down, watching the rainwater still dripping off my clothes and hair onto the floor. Shaking his head, he quickly turned around and sat down on the edge of his bed, pointedly looking away from me.

I didn’t know why I was making him uncomfortable, but I didn’t want to waste any time in trying to figure out why.

“Jamie, I’ll get straight to the point,” I said, not giving myself the opportunity to hesitate. “I’m sorry for interrupting your breakfast for this, but I need to get this off my chest.”

Jamie’s eyes widened and he looked up at me. His lips were pressed into a thin line and it looked like his eyes were about to pop out of his head. I frowned.

“What’s wrong?” I asked. His reaction was a bit too severe to ignore.

“Nothing!” he shouted. The sudden shift in his volume startled me, especially with how small the room was. He grimaced, as if realising it too. “I mean- please continue.”

“You’re sure?” I asked.

Jamie nodded frantically. His eyes were still wide and wild, and the way that his foot was now frantically tapping against the floor made it obvious that that wasn’t true, but I didn’t want to try to coax whatever was bothering him if he wasn’t immediately open to sharing, especially since I didn’t want to give myself the excuse to avoid this conversation for any longer than I should.

“Well, in that case… I don’t know if this is the right time for it, but I’ve been keeping secrets and hiding my true feelings for too long and I’m sick of it. If I don’t say this now, I don’t know when I’ll be able to say it again.”

I took a deep breath to steady myself.

“Your existence is absolutely terrifying.”

Jamie’s foot tapping stopped. He stared up at me like he didn’t know how to react.

“I know I’ve told you this already,” I continued, not giving myself the opportunity to stop in fear that I wouldn’t be able to start again. “And I know you feel guilty about it even if you shouldn’t and even if it’s not your fault. You’re a good person, Jamie, and I’ve learned that, but whether you’re a good person or not doesn’t mean I’m not afraid of the power you have. Unimaginable power, Jamie, more than enough to manipulate the mind of a stupid girl from the countryside.”

I leaned down to stare Jamie in the eyes. The excited nervousness that I’d seen in them before was gone now, replaced by something I couldn’t identify.

“Jamie,” I said, my voice cracking slightly. “Are you brainwashing me?”

“What?” he asked. “What are you talking about?”

His reaction gave me hope. Jamie was a lot of things, but receiving Godlike power hadn’t turned him into a good actor. Even so, I couldn’t be satisfied with just this.

“I know about the affection points, Jamie,” I said. “What are they?”

Jamie seemed confused for a moment, but after a few seconds, his eyes widened and he grimaced.

“You know about that?” he asked.

I didn’t bother to answer the question.

“Please, Jamie,” I pleaded. “I don’t have many goals in life. I know that you might not relate to that since I know you have some grand dream of becoming an adventurer. All I want is to have a peaceful and happy life, but it has to be my life. Please tell me I’m still me.”

Jamie frowned and looked away from me.

“I’m not brainwashing you, Lena,” he said, sighing. “The affection points are something else entirely.”

“What are they?” I asked.

“It’s a level of how much I like you,” he said. He spoke surprisingly clearly, when I would’ve expected this topic to normally send him into a mumbling mess, but his voice was flat and emotionless. “It’s at the Max level by the way. I already like you so much that I can’t like you any more than I already do, apparently.”

“Oh,” I said, lacking words.

“You already knew, I assume,” he said.

“Kind of,” I replied. “I didn’t know it was at that level though.”

“Well now you do,” he said. “How long?”

“How long what?”

“How long have you known?”

“Since the first day we met,” I said. “You couldn’t stop staring at my ass.”

Jamie cringed at that, and his frown deepened.

“Sorry,” I said.

“Why are you apologising?” he asked.

“I’m sorry for bringing it up,” I said.

An awkward silence fell between us, filled with nothing but the ambient sounds of the heavy rain pounding against the ceiling above.

“Well, now that it’s out in the open,” Jamie said. “Lena, I like you. Would you be my girlfriend?”

I looked down at him. His voice was still flat and emotionless and he didn’t even look at me while he said that. From what little I could see of his expression, his mouth was drawn into a thin line and his eyes looked glassy and fogged over.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“Bad timing?” he asked, with half a smirk.

I tried to chuckle at the joke, but Jamie’s smirk fell off his face as quickly as it had appeared.

“I’m pretty sure I’m gay,” I said.

“Oh,” he replied.

I half expected him to say something else, but Jamie remained silent, simply staring down into his lap.

“Sorry,” I said.

He shook his head. “Don’t apologise for that,” he said. He stared at his lap again for a few more seconds before raising his arms and pretending to yawn and stretch.

“Oh wow,” he said. “I didn’t realise how tired I was until now. I guess I didn’t get much sleep last night. You know, the beds we had in the tents were actually better than the ones the tavern provides. If it weren’t raining so hard, I probably would’ve just slept outside.”

It wasn’t difficult to understand where he was going with this.

“You’re tired?” I asked.

“Yeah,” he said, stretching and yawning again. “I think I’m gonna nap for a bit. Would you mind telling Oren and the gang to finish breakfast without me? I’ll come out when I’m ready.”

“Sure thing, Jamie,” I said. “For what it’s worth-”

“Please,” Jamie said, interrupting me. “Don’t do that.”

“Sorry,” I said. “I’ll leave you be.”

He nodded and lied down, turning so his back was towards me.

Seeing that there wasn’t anything I could do that wouldn’t make it worse, I slowly backed out of the room, making sure the door wouldn’t slam shut too hard when I left it.

I sighed.

“That could’ve gone better,” I said, mostly to myself.

“It had to happen sometime,” Sera said, from down the hall. “I think it went as well as it could’ve.”

I stared at her. She gave me an awkward wave and a smile.