Chapter 18 #2
“How,” I ask, and my voice is quieter now, more focused, “does that happen?”
Boone tilts his head slightly, considering how to answer. “There are different paths. Different species. Different agreements.”
“Agreements,” I echo faintly.
“Yes.”
We sit. Boone lowers himself onto a fallen log, the wood creaking under his weight. I perch beside him, close enough that our knees brush. He doesn’t move away.
“Sometimes,” he continues, “it’s magic woven slowly, over time. Sometimes it’s ritual. Sometimes it’s simply… proximity and choice.”
My mind races.
Magic woven slowly over time could be epigenetic adaptation. Ritual could be controlled exposure to some form of energy transfer. Proximity and choice—well. I don’t even know where to begin with that one.
“And the rune?” I ask, lifting it slightly.
Boone’s gaze drops to it, pride and caution warring in his expression. “That is access. Protection. Recognition. It tells the land—and those bound to it—that you’re under my care.”
My breath stutters. “Under your… care.”
“Yes.”
There it is again. That word. That sense of something being named without ceremony.
“And the lifespan thing?” I ask, because the information is hovering at the edges of my thoughts since Christopher smiled at me like a man who’s seen decades come and go and decided to stay anyway.
Boone’s shoulders tense. Not much. Just enough that I notice.
“It is not something discussed lightly,” he says.
“Okay,” I reply immediately. “Then we don’t have to discuss it.”
He studies my face, searching for something. “You’re curious.”
I huff a small laugh. “I’m a scientist. Curiosity is my default state.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
I open my mouth, then close it again. He’s right. This isn’t just academic curiosity. This is… personal. Uncomfortably so.
Boone looks away first. “Gaining—for thunderbirds—is… an alignment. A deep one. It changes how time treats a human body.”
My pulse picks up. “Changes how?”
“It slows. It adapts. It becomes more… resilient.”
I nod slowly. “Like Christopher.”
“Yes.”
“And it’s permanent?”
“Yes.”
The word lands with weight.
Permanent.
I glance down at my hands, at the rune resting against my skin, then back at Boone. He’s watching me now, openly, as if bracing for something.
A confession, maybe. Or a question.
Instead, I feel a sudden, sharp fear—not of him, not of the magic, but of myself.
Because the thought that rises, unbidden and undeniable, is not that’s terrifying.
It’s could I do that?
Worse—would I want to?
My chest tightens.
This is too much. Too soon. I’ve known Boone for weeks. Weeks. If I were watching a friend spiral this hard over someone they’d just met, I’d want to sit them down and stage an intervention.
Slow down, I’d say. You don’t even know if this will last.
And yet my body, my instincts, some deeper part of me I don’t have language for, is humming with certainty.
This matters.
This sticks.
I swallow hard and force a smile. “So. Runes.”
Boone blinks, thrown by the abrupt shift. “Runes.”
“Yes. Let’s—let’s talk about the rune. Specifically. How it works. Because my brain is on fire, and I need something concrete before I implode.”
He watches me for a beat longer, then nods. “All right.”
Relief loosens the tightness in my chest.
He reaches out and turns the rune gently in my palm, his fingers careful, reverent. “They’re keyed to intent as much as form. This one will allow you passage through certain wards. It will mark you as protected, not prey.”
“Useful,” I murmur.
“Yes.”
“And it responds to me because…?”
“Because you’re walking with me.”
The simplicity of the statement is disarming.
“Does it respond to everyone you walk with?” I ask.
“No.”
I glance up sharply, and our eyes meet. The moment stretches—quiet, loaded, intimate.
“Oh,” I say softly.
He looks away first this time. “It was Bob’s decision to give it to you now rather than pick it up outside the wards at Yellowstone.”
“Because?” I prompt.
“Because he’s a nosy bundle of old feathers who likes to gossip as much as the next cryptid.”
I snort.
His expression gentles as he peers down at me and clasps my hand. “It’s possibly also because I’ve never asked for a rune before, nor attended the Solstice Festival with anyone else before.”
Warmth blooms behind my ribs, equal parts gratitude and hope. It’s his own fault that I stand on my tiptoes and urge him down so I can press my lips to his.
He comes willingly, offering me the softest of kisses.
I swear this Bigfoot is going to be my undoing.
We spend the next hour talking through the mechanics as much as Boone can explain them—how runes are anchored to places, how some are portable, how they interact with ley lines and older magic threaded through the land.
My brain is on fire in the best way now, scribbling notes, drawing diagrams, already half drafting a paper I can never publish.
At some point, the light shifts again, deepening toward evening.
Boone rises to start camp, and I watch him move with a familiarity that would have startled me a couple of months ago. This feels… normal now. Comfortable.