The rainforest had a way of keeping secrets.

Beneath the enormous canopies of Sumeru's ancient trees, sunlight filtered through layers of emerald leaves, spilling in warm, golden patches across the forest floor. The air smelled of damp earth, wildflowers, and the faint sweetness of fruit ripening somewhere overhead. Tiny insects hummed in the undergrowth, birds called to one another from distant branches, and somewhere beyond the thick curtain of foliage, water trickled over stone.

It was a world that never quite fell silent. It simply softened, until even the loudest thoughts seemed a little less urgent.

And tucked away from the well-traveled paths, hidden behind a curtain of hanging vines and a particularly stubborn cluster of ferns, was their place.

Calling it a hideout was perhaps generous. It was an abandoned wooden platform built around the roots of an enormous tree, half reclaimed by the rainforest and accessible only by a narrow, uneven path that Zandik had once insisted was perfectly safe. There was a small table with one uneven leg, a collection of books that had absolutely no business being stored in such a humid environment, and a weathered cushion that had somehow migrated there from someone's house and never returned.

Over time, other things had accumulated. A chipped cup. A little wooden box full of interesting rocks. Several sheets of Zandik's handwritten notes, tucked beneath a smooth stone to keep the breeze from stealing them. A half-finished contraption whose purpose he refused to explain until it worked.

It was a mess.

It was also, by some inexplicable miracle, the only place in all of Sumeru where Zandik could tolerate doing absolutely nothing for an entire afternoon.

Well. Almost nothing.

At eighteen, Zandik had already developed the unfortunate habit of treating most of the world as an elaborate inconvenience. People were noisy, academic debates were repetitive, and the average person's capacity for independent thought was, in his private opinion, a matter worthy of scientific concern. He preferred things that could be understood, taken apart, and improved.

Unfortunately, people were not nearly so cooperative.

Especially one particular person.

He had spent the better part of the afternoon pretending to read.

His book lay open across one knee, a pencil tucked behind his ear, and his attention had been perfectly respectable for approximately seven minutes before he began glancing toward the entrance of their hideout. Another five minutes passed before he started rearranging the papers on the table. After that, he had taken apart a small mechanical device, put it back together, and discovered that he had somehow made it worse.

He blamed the humidity.

He blamed the birds.

He blamed the general decline of intellectual discipline in Sumeru.

He did not, under any circumstances, blame the fact that he had been looking forward to seeing you all afternoon.

And then you arrived.

Zandik looked up, prepared to make some remark about your tardiness, your questionable sense of time, or the fact that he had been forced to endure the unbearable solitude of his own company.

Instead, he noticed your hands.

More specifically, the intricate reddish-brown patterns winding across your fingers and palms.

His unfinished complaint died before it could reach his mouth.

You had been caught by the aunties in your neighborhood, apparently. The sort of women who could turn an ordinary afternoon into a communal event with nothing more than a bowl of henna paste, a few hours to spare, and an alarming amount of enthusiasm for discussing everyone else's personal affairs. By the looks of it, they had been thorough. Fine lines curled into flowers, delicate leaves branched into looping vines, and tiny details filled the spaces between larger patterns until the designs seemed to grow naturally across your skin.

Zandik stared.

Then he closed his book.

Slowly.

"What's that?"

It was a spectacularly stupid question. He knew what henna was. He had seen it before. He was reasonably certain that he possessed enough functioning brain cells to identify decorative patterns on human skin without requiring an explanation.

Nevertheless, it was the first thing he said.

His gaze remained fixed on your hands as he shifted over on the cushion, making room beside him. The movement was so automatic that he didn't seem to notice it himself.

"Let me see."

He held out his hand, palm upward, and waited.

There was something almost comical about the seriousness of his expression. Zandik approached even the most trivial matters with the intensity of someone preparing to defend a thesis, and apparently your freshly decorated hands were no exception.

Once he had your permission, he carefully took one of your hands, supporting it beneath the wrist so that he wouldn't smudge the design. His fingers were warm. There was a faint trace of graphite along the side of his index finger, and a tiny ink stain near his thumb, souvenirs from an afternoon spent pretending to be productive.

He turned your hand toward the sunlight.

"Oh."

A thoughtful little sound escaped him.

Then another.

He examined the patterns with growing concentration, leaning closer as the sunlight filtered through the canopy and illuminated the fine details. A breeze slipped through the leaves overhead, stirring the loose strands of hair around his face. He brushed them away impatiently with his free hand, apparently unwilling to let something as trivial as his own hair interfere with his investigation.

"They did a rather good job," he murmured. Coming from Zandik, this was practically a standing ovation.

His thumb hovered beside a cluster of tiny flowers, careful not to touch the wettest parts of the stain. He followed the curling lines with his eyes, searching the intricate design for something he couldn't quite explain even to himself.

Then his expression changed.

Not dramatically. Zandik wasn't particularly good at dramatic expressions unless he was expressing disdain. But his brows drew together, and his lips pressed into a thin line as a new possibility occurred to him.

He had heard about this.

The aunties, with their inexhaustible supply of opinions and their alarming interest in other people's romantic prospects, sometimes hid initials within henna designs. A little secret woven between flowers and vines, visible only to someone who knew to look for it.

An absurd custom, really.

Sentimental. Entirely impractical. An inefficient use of an otherwise perfectly good decorative pattern.

His eyes narrowed.

"Wait."

He brought your hand a little closer.

"Did they hide anyone's initials in here?"

The question emerged with such sudden urgency that it briefly startled even him. Zandik cleared his throat, attempting to recover the composure he had just abandoned.

"Apparently, some people find it amusing to conceal letters in these designs." He sounded as though he were explaining a particularly dubious scientific practice. "A name, or the initials of someone they're interested in. Something along those lines." He paused.

His gaze flicked up to your face, then immediately returned to your hand.

"An incredibly transparent method of encouraging romantic speculation, if you ask me."

He had, at this point, been holding your hand for considerably longer than necessary to establish that it was, indeed, decorated with henna.

He did not let go.

Instead, he adjusted his position, moving closer so that he could examine the other side of your palm. His shoulder brushed yours. Beyond the platform, the rainforest carried on in its lazy afternoon rhythm, sunlight dappling the ferns and turning the leaves a dozen different shades of green. Somewhere above them, a bird made a particularly indignant noise.

Zandik ignored it.

He was much too busy looking for something.

Or, more accurately, looking for someone.

He scanned the pattern again, tracing the winding shapes with his gaze. A flower. A curved line. Two tiny leaves nestled together.

Nothing.

He shifted your hand toward the light.

Still nothing.

His expression became faintly offended.

"How elaborate are these things supposed to be?"

He muttered the question under his breath, as though the henna artist had personally challenged his intelligence. Then he leaned back a little, finally looking at you properly.

There was a pause.

A very brief one.

"Because if they did hide someone's initials in here," he said, with the strained casualness of a person attempting to appear entirely unaffected by a subject that had consumed his full attention for the last several minutes,

"I should like to know who I'm competing with."

His ears had begun to turn pink.

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