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“I’m proud of you,” Azu says quietly that night, as she reads before bed.
“For what?” Carter says. He looks up at her from his place by her side; he’s barely left her since the ritual. “Coming back? Wasn’t hard. Dead easy, with you there.”
Azu smiles, blushing slightly. “Yes, well,” she says, “that too. But I meant… I am proud of you for growing up. The first time around, I mean. It isn’t easy to grow up like that.”
“Not like I had a choice, though,” Carter says. For once second, his face betrays a hint of bitterness. Of sadness. “Couldn’t not grow up.”
“Still.”
“Yeah. I guess,” he says, turning back, playing absentmindedly with a dagger. “I guess that…” he says after a moment, still looking at the knife weaving through his fingers. “You said you didn’t choose to be a paladin of Aphrodite, right? Back at the inn. But you’re still the best healer around.”
He looks at her again, this time with a shy smile. Azu feels her heart rise in her chest, remembering the quarantined conversation. She thought he’d been too drunk to remember.
She wraps her arm around him, pulling him closer. “Thanks, Howard.”