But I couldn’t pay attention to the text because somehow his hand had brushed against mine, or mine against his, and then his fingers had closed around mine and we were holding hands. And that was how we spent the next couple of days. Whenever I wasn’t sleeping, we were huddled together in the library reading books, him reading whatever it was he read in various languages I didn’t understand, and me reading specific texts that he selected to help me learn more about the cultures here or—at my request—to broaden my understanding of Common Tongue. But always holding hands.
