Though the Watcher had places to be and problems both her own and other people's to untangle, she did not immediately set out again from Caed Nua to tackle such matters. Lenneth and her friends had earned a rest, she declared. So for several days she held court in her own keep while they recovered their strength.

Her wizardry lessons with Aloth resumed the day after their return as if nothing had changed in the interim. At least, officially nothing had changed. He made an awkward apology, as they sat down over her grimoire, for his abrupt abandonment of her in the dance; she told him not to mention it, and apologized in turn for putting him on the spot like that. She wanted to ask him a hundred questions about why the dance had bothered him so, and whether Hiravias had been right about his...well, scent, but she was certainly not going to put it that way...and she couldn't think of a better way to put it before he was asking her questions about her grimoire and she had to pay attention to what he was saying and not go on daydreaming about the shape of his lips as he said it.

You could at least just kiss him and see what happens, Hiravias' advice echoed in her memory every time she saw Aloth. He'd be horrified, she repeated her own words to herself every time. Since he'd started wandering with her so many weeks ago, he'd become one of her dearest friends. With his secrets now safe in her keeping - Iselmyr, the Leaden Key, his father - Aloth seemed at ease in her company. He challenged her both in learning wizardry and in reconsidering her assumptions. He didn't shy from letting her know when she was being foolish. He'd proven his loyalty and care for her over and over, in battle and in the quieter moments.

But he'd frozen when they danced.

So she told herself that kisses would only make things worse and Hiravias was full of it. She was pretty sure that the last part was true, at least in general. But there were moments when she caught Aloth looking at her in a way she couldn't quite read and she wondered if the druid had a point, after all.

Once, after dinner, she almost took Hiravias' advice to just test his theories with an experimental kiss. The others had gone up to bed. Lenneth and Aloth sat alone at Brighthollow's dining table, arguing late into the night over The Animancy Problem. Lenneth was well aware of Aloth's aversion to the practice, and respected that; but until the collapse of the hearings in Defiance Bay she'd harbored a vague hope that the animancers might hold the key to fixing what had happened to her at Cilant Lîs. The riots against Defiance Bay's animancers in the wake of the Duc's murder had put that hope on hold, since there were few enough of them now left in the Dyrwood, but tonight she'd gotten a bit tipsy, then a bit maudlin about the state of her overwhelmed soul, and had begun plying Pallegina with questions about animancy in the Vailian Republics. Aloth, it seemed, had taken exception to this, though he waited till the end of dinner to express his objections, when they were alone. Lenneth, frustrated with her worsening nightmares and recalling how the worst of the crimes attributed to animancers in Defiance Bay had been Thaos' work in framing them, was inclined at first to dismiss his concerns as Aedyran squeamishness, until in his earnestness he grasped her hand, looking direct into her eyes, and pled with her not to do anything rash. The look in his eyes was such that for a moment she thought a kiss would be the least horrifying thing she could do to him, so she almost did. Then he seemed to suffer second thoughts about so direct an approach to swaying her opinion, dropped her hand and sat back as his face reddened, and the moment was lost.

But never quite forgotten. Several days later, Lenneth wandered into the keep's library in search of some records or other, pertinent to a vassal's request that had crossed her desk. The specifics fled her mind, however, when she rounded a corner of the stacks to see Aloth there, looking over a shelf of heavy arcane tomes. Greetings were exchanged, and genuine smiles - and more than a few surreptitious glances at each other as they went about their business. Lenneth finally conceded that she'd have to go back and reread the vassal's letter and look for the records again with a better idea of what she was looking for and without the distraction of a wizard who was doing his humble best not to distract her but also definitely keeping a very thoughtful eye on her when he didn't think she was looking.

So she sighed, and reshelved the various ledgers she'd been looking through, and called a farewell to Aloth. He smiled and waved in return, and looked back to his book.

Halfway to the door, she could contain herself no longer. She threw caution to the wind. "Aloth," she called suddenly, turning back to face him, "what would you do if I kissed you?"

He stared at her agape, as the book slipped from his fingers and slammed to the floor. Lenneth winced at the sound, silently cursing the abruptness of her question, the thoroughly unromantic timing. Should have left well enough alone, she chided herself, clenching and unclenching her fists as she waited for his response - any response. When the silence and Aloth's frozen stare became unbearable, she blurted, "Never mind. I shouldn't have - I'm sorry. Pretend I never said that," and turned on her heel to escape from his gaze before she could make any further fool of herself.

"What would you do if I kissed you?"

The question more than took Aloth by surprise. It had been all he could do, since he nearly lost her to the Eyeless, to not blurt out his feelings at the most inopportune times, but his life had been nothing if not a course in self-control. But the more he passed on these imperfect opportunities to bare his heart, the higher and more impenetrable grew the walls around it. As they resumed their routines in Caed Nua and the ease of their friendship, he told himself that this was enough: to see her safe, to be at her side keeping her safe, to talk with her and see her smile and hear her endless questions. He could hope for it to grow into more in time. If they had such time. The first priority was dealing with her soul's Awakening lest it drive her mad before they had a chance. That was her whole concern right now, he told himself: if she might ever welcome more than friendship with him, he wasn't going to let himself seek out clues of it now and set himself up for disappointment.

And then out of the blue, this question about kissing him. He barely felt the book fall from his hands as he stood there trying to process it. Was she serious? Lenneth was full of jests much of the time. Would she joke about a thing like this? He'd thought the dance was a joke of sorts, when Sagani played the sitaara; Lenneth was dancing with everyone, after all; it meant nothing. And yet dancing with her, arm in arm, so intent on one another's every movement - it couldn't mean nothing. The weight of what it might mean had overwhelmed him till he could take no more of her nearness and had fled, missing her hand's weight on his arm as soon as it was gone.

Was this the same sort of thing? Was she going around kissing everyone just out of curiosity? It would mean nothing to her that it meant everything to him. So he froze, unable to answer.

Or was it possible that she was serious?

"Never mind," she said when he took too long to give her an answer, and his heart sank as she turned to go. Probably not serious, then.

But never once, he realized, had she looked like she was jesting.

Ye daft tit, chided the voice in the back of his head, his lifelong ally of circumstance, his unwelcome councillor. Are ye gaunnae jist let her gang away then?

It had been some time since Iselmyr asserted herself. Not since Aloth had, with Lenneth's encouragement, come to terms with her - with that part of himself. Now, she mostly let him be and trusted his judgment.

For once, he decided to trust hers.

"Watcher," he called, taking two steps forward, stepping over the fallen book. "Wait. Lenneth."

She glanced back at him over her shoulder. Her eyes were wary now, much too vulnerable for one merely ignored in the middle of a jest. Gaining confidence, he stepped closer. "May I ask you a question, Lenni?"

She blinked at him, then nodded, turning back toward him. "Of course." Her voice was calm, but he recognized the mask. All business, assuming his question was of more mundane matters than the world-shaking one she'd briefly opened up.

Too briefly. So he'd have to shake it back open again. Another step toward her; he met her gaze and held it. "What would you do," he asked, "if I kissed you?"

Her eyes went wide; her hands flew to hide her gasp. After a moment, a smile crept into her eyes first, then her hands revealed it as she reached out for him. "Do you want to find out?" she asked as he took her hands.

"By all the gods, yes," he breathed without hesitation.

"Well, then," she said, eyes gleaming as she drew closer, "go ahead."

Only then did he realize that in reopening her question he'd turned it around, and taken it upon himself to kiss her first. A terrible idea - and an excellent one, as Iselmyr in his head echoed, On wi' it, then, will ye? Enow o' yer bletherin', kiss 'er!

Iselmyr did not, of course, have the grace to quietly leave them to it as Aloth leaned in to kiss the Watcher; but as the voice in his head was mostly now muttering timely advice about the positioning of his head and lips and such, he was not inclined to complain.

His lips met hers and stayed there only briefly; too briefly? he barely had time to wonder as he pulled back, searching her eyes, before Lenneth's arms slipped over his shoulders and pulled him back to her, kissing him again, and certainly not briefly this time. Long enough for his hands to find the spot at the small of her back where they fit just right, while her fingers wove into his hair. Long enough for Iselmyr to actually shut up for a moment.

When this second kiss ended, they stood there in each other's arms, lost in each other's eyes. There were flecks of green in the hazel of Lenneth's eyes, he noted. It was utterly charming, and she was even more beautiful this close - and with the luxury of time to gaze at her so directly - than in all his previous careful glances. He considered telling her this but filed it away for the future, saying instead: "I must apologize, I think."

Lenneth laughed, light and merry. "What could you possibly have to apologize for?"

"Well, it seems I have the answer to my question - you would simply kiss me back - but it may now be impossible to answer yours. What would I have done if you'd kissed me first?"

She traced a thumb slowly along his cheek, appraising him with hooded eyes. "I'd like to assume the answer would be the same, you know."

Aloth considered this, leaning into her hand. "Probably. It would now, at least."

"Not before?" she asked with an impish grin.

"Well, it would have certainly startled me. I dropped a book just hearing you ask it."

Lenneth's laughter was brief this time, punctuated with a kiss that startled him only a little. And then, as promised, he kissed her back.