The cave was quiet but for the sound of crackling wood.
I stirred the pot above the coals, murmuring the words my mother had taught me. The water shimmered, thickened, and soon the air filled with the scent of herbs and meat. Magic could not make a feast out of nothing, but it could trick hunger well enough.
Behind me, he shifted on the furs, dragging himself upright. His chains had burned out into lifeless metal, and though scars still marked his wrists, the fever had broken. His golden eyes caught the firelight as he watched me.
"You shouldn't be up yet," I said without turning.
"I'm tired of lying down." His voice was low, steady, a little hoarse.
I ladled the stew into two bowls and carried one over to him. He took it, gaze never leaving my face, as if trying to decide what kind of creature I was.
"Eat," I said. "Slowly."
He obeyed. For a while, the only sound was the clink of spoons against wood and the faint hum of my wards. I watched him out of the corner of my eye — the way his hands trembled slightly but never spilled, the way he ate with hunger but kept it controlled. He was used to starving.
When his bowl was nearly empty, he spoke.
"How old are you?"
The question startled me. "Why do you want to know?"
He looked down at his bowl, then back at me. "Because you dragged me from a tree and burned yourself nearly dry to keep me alive. You don't act like a child."
I almost laughed at that. "Twelve," I said instead.
His eyes flickered. "Twelve?"
"Yes." I lifted my chin, daring him to mock me.
He didn't. He studied me for a long time, like he was fitting the number into the shape of me and finding it too small. Finally, he set the bowl aside.
"I'm fourteen," he said.
I blinked. For some reason, I had thought him older — sixteen, seventeen at least. Something in his voice, his eyes, carried weight heavier than fourteen summers should.
"You don't look fourteen," I said quietly.
"You don't look twelve."
We stared at each other across the fire. Two strangers in the same cave, barely more than children, yet both marked by things that made us feel older.
"What should I call you?" I asked before I could stop myself.
His mouth curved, not quite a smile. "Nothing. Don't give me a name either."
"Why not?"
"Names have power, This you already know
Its why you wouldn't give me your name," he said simply. "Better we stay nameless. Safer."
I thought about that. About the stories my mother used to tell, of witches who lost themselves when their names were stolen. He wasn't wrong.
"Fine," I said. "No names."
For the first time, he looked almost at ease. He leaned back against the cave wall, golden eyes half-lidded, though his body was still taut, like a bowstring ready to snap.
"You're lucky," I said after a while, staring into the stew I hadn't finished. "If I hadn't found you, the demons out there would have."
His gaze sharpened instantly. "Demons?"
"Yes." I kept my voice steady. "They hunt the roads. Faces like ours until their eyes go black. The last caravan I saw — wagons burned, iron twisted. People said it was demons. I don't know if that's true. But you wouldn't have stood a chance in the forest alone."
Something flickered in his eyes — too quick for me to name. He set his empty bowl down carefully, deliberately, and then looked at me across the fire.
"Maybe," he said softly.
For a moment, we sat there in silence, two nameless children bound together by circumstance. A witch and a boy with secrets he would not give.
The fire popped, the wards hummed, and outside the forest held its breath.
And in that quiet, I thought — for the first time since I found him bleeding in the dark — that maybe we weren't so different.