Once Tanu left the area, Warren unlocked her cell and entered her cage. He collapsed in the bean bag to her left.

With him up close, Vanessa could spy the slightly off-color patch on Warren's jeans —a mending of an injury procured on their mission to a Tanzanian dragon sanctuary. She had bought a sewing kit from a convenience store and fixed it up while he had been unconscious. It had been just like sewing wound stitches which she had done that morning on his leg.

After, with her own alarm bells ringing at her actions, she had told herself she would have done the same for anyone. That hadn't been true.

Vanessa pushed those thoughts to the side and refocused. It was just hard to stop getting sucked into the past. There were simply too many damn memories tying them together.

Vanessa raised her eyebrow. "You're quick to enter the cell of someone you say you can't trust."

Warren shrugged, hiding a small smile, and handed her the vial. "Bottoms up."

She uncapped it and threw the liquid back. It was the most carbonated drink she'd ever had. Relentless bubbles tickled her throat. She blinked in surprise.

Warren stared at her intensely. Warm shades of brown burst from his pupil and melted into the dazzling emerald edges like a brackish river meeting the deep ocean.

They were so beautiful.

He chuckled. "Thank you."

Vanessa clamped a hand over her mouth. Had she said that out loud? Oh no. What was going on? All her thoughts bubbled up her throat and threatened to break the barrier she usually enforced through her tight hand. She could feel her throat spasming with her thoughts.

Nevertheless, like all magic, there had to be a skill for it. Vanessa concentrated on one single thought and removed her hand from her mouth. "This is horrible." Panic threaded her voice.

Warren shrugged. "It's necessary. Do you hate the Sphinx?"

"Yes," Vanessa said quickly. "I hope for his death to be painful and lonely."

Shock raised her own eyebrows. She had never experienced such an instantaneous transition of thoughts to words. Her carefully crafted filters had vanished. Is this how everyone lived? How terrifying.

Warren laughed harder, tears peeking out the corners of his eyes, hands clutched around his stomach.

"You should've gotten a dose too," Vanessa said. "And then we can see how you'd like it. I wonder what you'd say. Maybe—" Vanessa clamped a hand over her mouth once she realized she couldn't halt the train of thought purely mentally. The muffled words dampened her shirt sleeve. Shame crawled over her skin.

"I don't need a drug to speak my mind," Warren replied teasingly. "Now, are you still loyal to the Society?"

"No," Vanessa said. "I really haven't been since they—" She coughed and bit her tongue. "Wow, do you know how much this potion fucking sucks?"

Warren's eyes shined with mirth. "I can imagine."

The casualness of the beanbags, of their banter, of the way he laughed at her with his eyes, of the imagined affection, of his bouncing, restless knee, of his eyes, of—oh God, how his eyes—

"I haven't seen you look this way in years," Vanessa thought and said, instantaneously.

Of course, instantaneously.

Because if there had been a single sliver of a second in between her mind and her mouth, Vanessa would have put a stop to the words immediately. But, she had been distracted by the smile wrinkles indented around his eyes. This joy, this laughter? Even if it was at her expense, it was so close to the old Warren that she ached for more.

But, of course upon her words, the familiar, cozy laughter left and the (even more familiar, now) silence fell. With a throat-clearing cough, Warren returned to his standard line of questioning. His finger itched behind his ear and he readjusted his uncomfortable position. "So, in regards to your motives as an operative of the Society..."

And with shame oozing down her spine, Vanessa returned to answering.