“Of course not,” he said, shaking his head. “If there were any gods, they’d have done something about the Blight by now. They wouldn’t just let their world die.”

“Oh,” Florian said. “Yeah, that… that makes sense.”

For a moment they were both silent, then Kade crouched down, so they were eye level once more.

“Sorry,” he said, his voice softer this time. “I don’t mean to sound flippant or anything. People can believe whatever they want. I’m sure a lot of shifters really do believe in a Wolf-God. I just don’t.”

“That’s fine,” Florian said quickly. “I don’t care. Most Earth religions aren’t really that, uh, nice toward people like me. Like us. And Uncle August didn’t seem to really believe in any religion either, so I just... don’t really care about it.”

“Don’t most Earth religions not believe in magic anyway?” Kade asked, a hint of wry amusement in his voice.

“That’s true,” Florian laughed. “Of course Uncle August wouldn’t have believed in any of it, then. He knew magic was real the whole time.”

They moved on to lighter conversation, and by the end, Florian felt almost normal again. The cold was bracing, keeping him grounded. They were alone, and Kade seemed more open, his smiles and laughs coming more easily. Florian wondered what their relationship might be like if the pressure of saving the world weren’t weighing on them so heavily. If it were anything like these sorts of quiet, stolen moments, he could only hope that they’d be done with it all sooner rather than later.