Are you asking? Kieran wanted to say, but didn't — because he knew that Jude was asking. And after everything — the animagus transformation, years of nights in the attic together, Jude running for Minister, all of it — Kieran did not think that he could push Jude off with a near lie.

They were alone in the street, and Jude was meeting his eyes, and Kieran swallowed. He felt his heartbeat in his throat. There was so much risk. Jude wouldn't sell him out, he knew that — but their lives would never be the same, no matter the outcome.

But — would it really hurt that much? To finally know for sure? Kieran had been lying to Jude for years; over a decade, at this point. It had been easy, at first. To stare and paint at a man who didn't like him at all, who wasn't his friend, who thought he was a terrible person. Then they had become friends, and then they had become — whatever they were now. So maybe he could not lie again.

Kieran swallowed again. The words pushed through his throat and for his mouth. "You always make me say it," Kieran said, a fond smile on his face. The memory was horrible — Jude, poking and prodding at him until he finally admitted that he was a werewolf — but it had turned fond, all the same, with the years.

Kieran was always confessing. Lycanthropy, biting Topaz Urquart, and now —

"I've loved you the whole time," Kieran whispered in the dark and empty street. "Didn't you notice?"