Chapter 264

How much time passed before she and Rave finally got back up off the sleeping mat, Leesa had no idea. Inside the dim confines of the cave, there was nothing to mark the passage of time. The sun never poured directly in through the entrance, so once the morning had reached full light outside, the illumination in the cavern remained the same, a kind of pale twilight.

They talked, held each other quietly, and talked some more. She drifted off to sleep at least once, she knew. She thought she could easily spend the entire day like this, wrapped up close to Rave with absolutely nothing to distract them, but there was a reason they had come all the way up here to the mountains of New Hampshire. And it wasn’t to lie around all day like a couple of love-struck teenagers—even though that was exactly what she was. She smiled to herself, thinking that if she wanted to get technical, Rave was still a teenager, too—in volkaane terms, at least.

She leaned her head