Chapter Text

PART ONE: Helium Flash

I was pinned to the floor, my arm wrenched hard behind my back; the hands holding me down, grinding my face against the cold floor, were massive and merciless.

"Say it," growled the voice behind me. A sharp knee jabbed into my lower back, hard against the knobs of my spine.

"Fuck you," I snarled against the floor.

The weight on top of me shifted and the hand palming the back of my skull moved, fingers digging hard into my scalp. My heart hammered hard against my ribs, my rib cage feeling smaller by the moment, lungs struggling for each gasp. Something – a tail – wrapped around one ankle as I tried to snake it back to get some leverage.

"Say it," the voice repeated. "What are you going to do, Sashen?"

I knew the answer. Nothing. I was going to do nothing. I could do nothing. I wheezed again, ribs compressing even more, eerily pliant under the massive weight of another body. "I still – think the tail – isn't fair," I whined.

I heard the scoff I knew I would, and the pressure eased up on my back. The hand on my head relaxed, although not before Tam ruffled my hair, which he knew I fucking hated because I'd told him ten minutes ago when we'd been in this exact position. The tight coil of his tail around my ankle slackened, and then he shoved himself off of me.

I rolled over to my back, my hands coming up to cradle my head as I blinked up at the massive gaanith who was standing over me, looking deeply unimpressed. "Alright, where did I go wrong?" I asked. "Chastise me."

"Where to begin?" he said, spiny ear flaps flaring with amusement, the leathery skin snapping like flags near a landing dock, here in the gym where I'd been doing this exact thing – getting the shit beat out of me followed by a scathing critique, before getting back up and doing it again – all afternoon. While Tam gave me the dressing down I'd hoped I would receive, merrily outlining my personal flaws, the ways in which I was a shameful student, and my utter lack of anything resembling a sense of self-preservation, I blinked at him placidly and enjoyed feeling enough air in my lungs.

"So," he finished with an irritated flick of his tail, "Am I going to be seeing more of you, or are you going back to hiding behind your prince's coat?" He offered one meaty paw, which I took and hopped to my feet, suppressing the long groan that filled my chest as things cracked and popped unpleasantly inside of me. "Hell of a first session, kid."

I rolled my shoulders, which cracked some more. "Yeah, I'll send you a list of my days off and you can draw up a schedule." My tongue traced the front of my teeth, which tasted coppery and bright. "Don't call me kid, though."

He followed me as I headed to the side of the training floor to grab a towel and scrape off sweat and the occasional spatter of blood – my own – while I continued to pretend that I didn't want to wince with every step. "What, then?" Tam asked good-naturedly. "Buddy doesn't suit you. Don't think I'd even try sweetheart."

I snorted and shot him a pointed look, dumping the damp towel into one of the laundry bins off to the side. "You can call me sweetheart," I tried, fluttering my eyelashes a little as I stepped into the jumpsuit I'd been wearing over my shorts and tank top.

It was a test. Mostly. A little for him, a lot for me.

To his credit, Tamcer Temahura – retired pit fighter; new gym owner; veteran of hundreds of bare knuckle brawls – only looked deeply unimpressed. "Alright, pal," he drawled.

And I – looking up at him with his broad shoulders and gleaming red skin, those hands that had thrown me around all afternoon as his bulging body pinned me down – felt exactly nothing.

I just wasn't sure if I'd passed my own little test or if that meant I'd failed it.

Tam tilted his head. "You want me to call in someone to help clean you up after our sessions? My assistant coach, Dreyko, will absolutely offer to help, but your face is expensive. Don't let him try and set anything. I don't want an angry abaya coming by because I sent back his pretty dancer bloodied up or with a crooked nose." At my blank look, he gestured at my face, and I turned to look at myself in the glass separating the training room from the water tank where species who could breathe underwater would train.

I'd wiped most of the blood off, but there was still a livid bruise blooming across one eye. "I'm good," I said absently, prodding at the skin that was already starting to swell. "I rented out a place nearby and picked up a subdermal knitter. Just, you know, if you could avoid breaking my nose or knocking out any teeth – I don't think I've got the jawline for a crooked nose, and I'd rather not go to a clinic. I don't know if you've noticed, but I'm kind of a big deal in Radiant Ward. The tabloids would get all excited."

Behind me, Tam laughed with a booming guffaw, shaking his head and heading over to some weight-lifting equipment he'd had me work at first before turning his attention to beating the ever-loving shit out of me. "Yeah, I know: fan club is right outside. I can hear them screaming even from in here."

For a beat, there was nothing but deafening silence – and then the air recycler kicked on overhead, wheezing and coughing in the grimy little gym, and I burst into laughter, unable to help myself.

It was exactly what I liked about Radiant Ward here on Sozamia Station.

Creche Thiel's calendar – by which I mean Araxis and Vivith's calendar, and therefore my calendar – had been full before we even set foot on Sozamia. On top of managing the retrofit of the ship and arranging virtual meetings with lawyers and politicians in Xitera, we'd also had to move everyone from the ship – their long-time home – to a suite of rooms in Verdant Ward. Maybe that doesn't sound like it would be so bad when you consider that Creche Thiel was small, and Egnax was staying back with the ship anyway, not trusting anyone to work on it unsupervised. But I quickly came to understand that wrangling three excitable children, and three older abaya I would generously describe as either ornery or particular, was its own challenge.

Avelthe and Yalrinn, who I hadn't been allowed to meet before the Tournament, were an entire experience unto themselves: Avelthe was quick to complain about everything – from the sound the shuttle made when we undocked to the way the light glinted off the hulking form of Sozamia Station to the volume of my breathing and the sound my eyelids made when I blinked – while Yalrinn was eager to turn every situation into a chance to expound on a favoured piece of poetry or theatre. I might not have been able to speak abayan yet, but that didn't stop Yalrinn from clasping her almost unnaturally strong hand around my wrist and holding me in place while she recited a favourite monologue in a language I couldn't understand, beaming at me when she was done. My only strategy was to escape before that reminded her of another favourite text.

Evreni wasn't much better, watching me like a hawk as I'd carefully packaged up samples of minerals from her lab on the ship and loaded them into the shuttle. "Do you need all of these in the next two and a half months?" I'd asked plaintively after my fifth trip between the lab and shuttle.

Her mouth had flattened, eyes narrowing. "I have told you already," she'd sniped, before deciding in a fit of pique that she also needed me to bring three different microscopes, just in case.

So the first few days of settling in on Sozamia had been, quite frankly, a lot of that – and then the first designated Personal Day cropped up in my calendar, which meant that, after a bit of an awkward morning, Araxis had kicked me out the door of our creche's suite with a firm reminder that it was my day off and that I should avail myself of the amenities on a large station. I was sure that, if I'd made a fuss, I could have just lounged in bed all day, but given that my bedroom – our bedroom; after all, we were playing the part of a perfect little virra-sinnenthi couple – adjoined the meeting room where he and Vivith would be holed up all day in meetings pinging over deep space relays, and I'd be able to hear them murmuring, I knew that it would only be a matter of time before curiosity won and I ended up eavesdropping, and then worming my way in.

And because this was a job, because I had a contract, I couldn't do that. Because this was a job, I couldn't let myself get sucked in to things that weren't my business – namely, anything happening outside of my working hours (which were 'all of the time, except for random dates Araxis had forcibly peppered into my contract').

Here's what you should know about Verdant Ward where we were staying: it's for rich people and I therefore instinctively, a) hated it, and b) didn't trust it. Could anyone really feel comfortable anywhere without at least a base layer of grime? I sure as hell couldn't, and so while others might admire the crisp, clean air, the freestanding white buildings, the orderly streets and avenues and pedestrian thoroughfares, the ample greenery, the broad expanse of artificial sky overhead that mimicked life on a planet, it all made me feel –

I don't know. Itchy, but inside of my brain. There were shops and museums and theatres; outdoor dance classes, parks with fountains, and a very nice 'one with nature' type school – pretty impressive for a school on a space station – that the kids had started attending; there were polite street vendors, slow-moving transit shuttles, public art installations where interested parties wandered about and made curious sounds while staring at some of the ugliest statuary I'd ever seen in my pathetic little life. And everyone who bustled around Verdant Ward was so polite and well-mannered that they only glanced in my direction when they either recognized me from broadcast or were surprised to see a stray human in such an exclusive locale. Although I had been stopped by ward guards three times to check my ID before word must have gotten out – probably because the last time, I'd been picking the children up from school and mentioned Creche Thiel and the guard, an abaya with a mean shape to their mouth, had actually muttered an apology before leaving me well enough alone. I'd suspected then that I might have to do a lot of name-dropping, and that realization had made me so mad that I hadn't even noticed until we made it half a block away that Adrathi had left her shoes at school.

I hated it in Verdant Ward. Where, I had wondered on my first morning off, were the shady medical clinics, the arcades, the clubs with throbbing music, the cages for pit fighting? Where did anyone launch station shuttles for illegal street races? Would anyone even try to mug me if I put on a fancy outfit and had the gall to look too rich? Fuck, I hadn't even bothered bringing my swords when I went for a wander because why would I? I was in Verdant Ward, and as far as Sozamia Station was concerned, that was the safest, cleanest, best possible place to be.

I didn't even finish the fancy drink I'd bought before tipping it into one of the many public waste receptacles, none of which appeared to have ever been used or vomited on. I had downloaded a map of the station, flashing up a quick overview of some of the wards for tourists, just so that I knew what I was getting myself into: I might have been bored and off-kilter and tired of being surrounded by so much white – who had white polymer everywhere on a station anyway? People who had an unlimited budget for cleaning, that's who, and I definitely didn't trust anyone with an unlimited budget for anything – but I wasn't stupid.

Even on Yellow Fin, there were places I wouldn't have dared to go. And on Sozamia, there were levels to the seedy underbelly, just like there were on any station of a decent size.

I'd tried Central Ward first in an effort to be respectable or something. It was about as anodyne as it could be – but I'd also been practically mobbed when I was just sitting at an outdoor amphitheatre and alternating between looking at the void of space far above and idly scrolling through message boards in search of a promising language tutor. I'd been trapped for nearly an hour taking photos and signing papers and shirts and the occasional slimy patch of skin, all while fending off wandering hands and trying to smile my way through the whole thing so that I didn't accidentally give any cheap tabloids the excuse to write about me being a brat. The problem was that Central Ward was the must-see destination for tourists – and tourists apparently also enjoyed galactic reality broadcasts and, because they were on vacation and therefore feeling self-indulgent, didn't see anything wrong with bothering a D-list celebrity who was just trying to find leads on potential gyms and abayan language tutors so that he could be less useless.

So that had been Central Ward. I wasn't stupid enough to try Core unless I went fully armed, and even then, the miasma alone might kill me. Glimmer hadn't been too different from Central in terms of my reception – which was to say it was annoying, and not particularly what I thought I'd be doing with a Personal Day – so it had been with some relief that I'd finally found myself in Radiant which felt, for the first time since I'd left the den, like I was on familiar terrain. Radiant Ward was grimy and had the benefit of being where the abaya I'd eventually chosen as my language tutor rented her rooms. There were a lot of abaya in Radiant Ward, which I'd worried might mean that I was bothered there too, but any of the crecheless abaya I'd come across who maybe recognized me ducked their heads and left me alone. It was good luck, too, that it was in Radiant Ward that I'd finally found a gym owner who didn't look at me as a cash cow who needed coddling or hand-holding.

Here, in Radiant Ward, no one gave a fuck at all about who I was or where they'd seen my face before. They weren't trying to be polite: they just couldn't be bothered to give me a moment of their attention. Even the people I was paying would be mean to me, just a little bit – which was more or less exactly what I needed.

It felt like breathing in clean air for the first time after too long on a concourse.

"I'll send you those dates," I promised Tam as I zipped up my jumpsuit and headed toward the door, checking the time on my wristband. I had just enough to make it back to the apartment I'd rented before my language tutor Inmadra arrived for our fourth session, which meant I probably had time to grab some dumplings from the abayan vendor in the market outside and to frantically review the vocabulary banks Inmadra had assigned so she didn't tear a strip off me for being a negligent student.

"You can also send me my credits!" Tam's voice echoed down the dark and empty hallway at the back of his gym as I pushed out into the ward beyond, and I laughed and called up my display, sending payment directly into his account.

It was pretty fucking novel, having credits of my own. Lots of them. So many that I'd drawn up an agreement with Silver Sea after my first payment had landed in my account, so she was now receiving most of my credits and investing them for me. I shouldered my way past a tangle of ketaari headed toward a nearby arcade that definitely had backrooms where something illicit happened – arcades were never that busy in a place like this – and headed out into the warren of tunnels beyond.

Radiant Ward knew what it was: a questionable neighbourhood on a space station. It didn't pretend to be anything else, not like Verdant Ward that tried so hard to be more like a planet, or Glimmer Ward, which was all neon lights and pulsating nebulas projected on cavernous spaces overhead, like it was playing at being Devonia Station with its infamous thousand and one casinos. Here in Radiant, when I looked up, I could see the ceiling, heavily laden with the pipes, tubes, wires and ducting needed to keep a station humming along. Instead of free-standing buildings, doors split into the tunnel walls, sometimes branching into massive complexes, other times leading to different tunnels and alleys. The air was a bit thicker, although it was still cool. And instead of the glowing white polymers of Verdant Ward, Radiant Ward reflected Sozamia's origins as a mining station: dark metal, blocky facades, utilitarian doors, and a thin layer of dirt and soot that I thought of as character.

Radiant Ward had that particular lived-in filth I'd come to appreciate. It's why I'd bothered renting a tiny apartment – just a studio – close by. At least down here, I could breathe. Down here, I wasn't Sashen of Creche Thiel. I was just Sashen. I had to try being just Sashen before I could figure the rest out.

By now, I had a route to and from Tam's figured out. I stepped off to the side of one boulevard to cut past an alleyway that I'd found a little too questionable the last time I'd gone through – I was pretty sure I'd interrupted what was either a mugging or a very strange overture to public sex, but either way the pair had bolted away and I'd been left mentally marking that little corridor off the list of places I'd go alone – and paused to look at a glowing screen across the way, where a news story was being broadcast about some sort of riot that had taken place earlier that day at the loading docks on Ibion, a planet I'd only heard of in the same sentence as safety violations. I couldn't hear the news anchors speak but the subtitles helpfully explained that the abayan host thought the workers were causing unreasonable disruptions to the shipping schedule for Sadrum-4. Representatives from Xitera have filed official complaints with CPEF in a bid for greater security presence [approving subvocal].

"Get out of the way," snapped a mar as they bustled past me, holding a tray that looked like it was just bits of corroded piping. "You're in front of my display! Are you stupid? Do humans not have eyes?"

Ah, to be back in a place where aliens would be pissy with me.

I shot them one of my dumbest smiles. "Whoops, sorry," I said, sliding away from the display built into the tunnel wall. A door behind me led into a tiny cluttered shop that was, from what I could tell, just salvage and possibly an excuse for this mar to live in their collected filth.

The mar set their tray down inside the door with a clatter, pivoting to stare at me as I waited for a biryat pushing a hovercart to pass; the whole alley was blocked, and biryat famously hated cold climates, so they might feel compelled to stab me if I got in their way. The mar tilted their head out again, looking me up and down, broad mouth thinning into a massive frown. "You're that human," they said after a moment.

"I'm certainly a human," I said.

"No, you're that one from the Tournament," the mar said, sounding irritated and nasally.

I looked at them, their gray skin gleaming in the flickering overhead light outside of their shop entrance. "Am I?" I asked, not terribly interested in being perceived, especially not by a grumpy mar.

Their pupils narrowed on their eyestalks. "I had a sizable bet placed on your demise. I was certain that Araxis of Creche Thiel would finish you."

Well, that was certainly a flipside to my fleeting fame that I hadn't encountered yet. I fluttered my eyelashes at the mar a little, and said, "Oh, he definitely finishes me. Thanks for asking. I appreciate when people are invested in our relationship." And then I flounced off, threading my way around the edge of the hovercart as it passed and disappearing into the crowds of Radiant Ward's more central tunnels.

Of course, Araxis and I weren't doing anything that came to any sort of pleasant finishes at the moment. We were taking a break. He was my client; I was his virra on contract, and he'd been nothing but professional.

Which was good. That was what I wanted and needed and told him to do. And on today, my fourth whole day off, I resolved not to think of him at all.

Although I still hoped the meeting with Creche Ena was going well. It had to be awkward, given how Andiri had nearly murdered me and, in doing so, had apparently broken something inside of me because, weeks after I'd been on the sands, I was still chased by tremors of the terror I'd felt then. The inevitability of my death. Her hungry stare, her hard fingers, the way I'd begged.

I don't ever want to be scared like I was on the sands, I'd told Tam when I'd first met with him, when I was still feeling out whether he might be the right fit. I'd already passed on two other trainers who either seemed overeager to knock me down a peg or overeager to simper and flatter. I want to be able to defend myself. I want to be able to stop someone if they're hurting me.

He'd watched me carefully with those yellow eyes. You want to be able to kill someone, he'd said. Is that right?

I thought of my intro line for the Tournament – I'd rather kiss than kill someone – and how laughable it had been. That was what everyone thought of me. Weak, a liability, an easy target. A little lamb in need of shepherding.

So I'd said yes, and I'd decided that I wanted to be a wolf instead.

Although after Tam's trouncing today, it was clear that I had a long way to go. That was fine: I'd brought my swords with me this time and we'd started with blades, which Tam had begrudgingly admitted that I was passable with. Although, he'd added, I don't care if you're going to Xitera where every abaya insists they're going to act honourably. In a real fight, there aren't rules, so you'd better be ready to throw down no matter what. The problem is your instincts. You're nice, Sashen; you don't want to hurt anyone. But if someone wants to hurt you – you'd better get there first. We're going to have to rewrite your instincts. It's going to take a lot of work – but we can turn you into something else.

It was funny, I thought as I approached the small and busy market square just outside my apartment building, how things had almost come full circle: back on Seraphim, all of the boys had been child soldiers in training. That hadn't suited me then; I wasn't sure how well it suited me now. But if the conflict was between wanting a gentle life and wanting to be able to take care of myself – well, I knew which way I'd rather let things fall.

The apartment I'd found was at the edge of a former landing pad from when Radiant Ward had been primarily used to refine whatever was mined in the nearby asteroid belt. At some point, it had been turned into a park in an attempt to transform these rare open spaces to something for public enjoyment, but then all of the trees had died. Now, the square was more like a night market, except that in Radiant Ward, it was always night. Shifts cycled through by colour, the streetlights changing throughout the day, but it was always a dim and murky.

Another thing that suited me just fine.

I cut across the square, waving at the brin vendor who'd hooked me up with a subdermal knitter and had only slightly overcharged me, and threaded my way toward the small dumpling cart that I'd first spotted after taking possession of my shitty little apartment.

As I ducked around a table of broken tech pieces, the abayan proprietor, Elethenn, looked up – and did a double-take. All at once, his face drained to a flat white, his mismatched eyes – one black, the other a milky white no doubt due to the jagged scar that traced a slice across his forehead and down his cheek – flaring wide.

I frowned, then caught a glimpse of myself in one of the cracked reflective glass displays at the salvage cart. Right, I looked like I'd been beat to shit.

I waved a hand dismissively as I drew close enough to hear the whine of distress rumbling in Elethenn's throat. "I'm fine," I promised. "I've just been training. I've got a subdermal knitter in my apartment."

"Are you quite certain?" he asked. He wasn't as tall as Araxis, his dark crest tied back in a high knot; the apron he wore over a tired jumpsuit was clean and tidy, although I could make out a dozen places where it had worn through and been carefully repaired. He looked – well, stricken as he took me in.

I huffed out a breath. "Yeah, it's all good. You can't learn to kick ass without having your own ass kicked, right?"

He blinked once at me, features still pinched and unhappy.

"Anyway," I continued breezily, surveying the cart, "I'll take a mixed pack. I've got my language tutor coming over, and your dumplings are amazing." I beamed, trying to project just how okay I was. I dealt with enough unhappy abaya on a daily basis; I didn't need my dumpling vendor being upset. And then, because there was really no time like the present, I squared my shoulders and tried again, ignoring the way the skin around my eye was throbbing in time with my heartbeat, "Your food is much good."

For a long moment, Elethenn just stared at me, and then he fluted out a short, hard breath. "Your accent is good," he offered gently, pulling a small box out from beneath the cart and starting to pack up an assortment of dumplings. "You would say –" He then changed the compliment I'd tried to pay him, adding in a couple unfamiliar words. I repeated them back as he continued to pack the dumplings. I tapped my wristband against his vendor sign, payment chiming through, and gathered up the food.

"Thanks," I said in Standard. "Or – thank you very much." I tried it in abayan, waiting for a correction, but he only smiled at me faintly. I cradled the wrapped dumplings gently in my hands. "Do you mind if I practice when I stop by?"

"I do not mind," he said carefully. His hands rested on the glossy counter of his cart; his nails, unfiled, ticked on the lustrous surface.

"And you'll correct me if I get something wrong? You won't hurt my feelings. I can only learn if I'm corrected."

Something like amusement flashed, lightning fast, across the Elethenn's asymmetrical features. "Yes, Sashen of Creche Thiel, I will correct you. You must… have your ass kicked if you're to learn?"

I laughed, then, delighted. "Yeah, you've got it. Alright, I'll see you next time." And then I headed back across the square and up the rickety set of metal stairs to my apartment. The old warehouse that had been carved out for this apartment block had been squat and utilitarian. A walkway ran along the outside of the building and gave me a nice view of the square below, which was lit up by the little lanterns on vendors' carts and the overhead lighting that glowed a warm orange. I tapped my wristband against the panel and let myself in, the door hissing behind me as I locked it and turned to survey my space.

The place I'd rented wasn't much bigger than my bunk on Creche Thiel's ship, but it was a palace compared to what I'd had at Alet Trident's and how I'd grown up on Seraphim Station. There was a tiny counter that ran along the back wall with a sink and a burner; it had come furnished, so I'd inherited a questionable couch near the front of the room, a round and wobbly table, and a cluster of three mismatched chairs that were intended for species with tails. There was a window, but the polymer was so old and had been buffed so many times that you couldn't really make out anything through it: just colours and movement, as if you were looking through water.

A narrow doorway sat at the edge of the metal kitchen cupboards, opening directly into the world's tiniest bedroom – literally, all it had was a bed that you had to climb on to get inside of the room – and a minuscule hygiene room. It still smelled like acrid cleaner in here: the landlord, a prickly malat who had barely been able to squeeze through the door, had begrudgingly admitted that someone had been murdered here, which was why he was offering it at such a discount. I'd been assured that the murder had happened because of some petty crime gone wrong, and the security system had been upgraded as a result.

"Well, I can promise I'm not going to be involved in any petty crime," I'd assured him as I'd poked through the bare cupboards, trying to hide my excitement.

"No," the malat had grumbled, watching me as he leaned one massive shoulder against the wall. "It is why I have considered your application, even without references."

I guess being sort of famous did have a perk or two.

I set the dumplings down on the counter, clicked on some water to boil, and ducked back to the hygiene room, wincing as I looked at myself in the metal mirror. I did look like shit. I grabbed the subdermal knitter and clicked it on, immediately pressing the cool metal against the swollen skin around my eye. I had enough time to bring that bruise down and to start working on the scrapes on my knuckles when there was a chime from the front door panel.

So much for having time to review my vocabulary banks. I crossed the meagre space of my apartment and opened the door, smiling at the pair of abaya who were waiting for me.

I'd first come to Radiant Ward to meet with Inmadra after sorting through what felt like dozens of listings for potential teachers. Unlike the others, who had reasonable boundaries about how often you could contact them, Inmadra had sounded desperate enough to let me bother her basically any time I had a few minutes, and she'd gotten back to me immediately when I'd sent her a message in between being mobbed by tourists in Central. I knew I'd need someone with flexibility, because I'd be trying to learn as much abayan as possible around what was a pretty full schedule, days off aside. Inmadra was an older abaya, with a strong jaw and a short gray crest she had tied back in a knot at the base of her skull. I hadn't been sure when I'd first met with her if she'd be up to the task: she'd been quiet when I sat down at the cluttered table in the boarding house where she was staying, which I'd mistaken for reticence – until she asked me to speak a few phrases. After listening to my attempts, Inmadra had said that my pronunciation was atrocious and that I'd managed to make a grammatical error she hadn't even thought was possible and if I ever wanted to be a decent abayan speaker, I was going to have to demonstrate a level of discipline she wasn't certain I had. She had stared at me with exacting judgment and, when I said I wanted to try again, listening carefully and repeating back the phrases she said, again and again and again while she corrected me every time, she had looked pleasantly surprised. By the time I’d left, it was clear that she had expected me to give up; I liked that I'd maybe impressed her by being stubborn. I liked that she'd call me out if I was lazy.

This was our fourth meeting and the second one at my apartment. I'd made the suggestion, and she'd seemed okay with it – but had brought another abaya from the boarding house where she stayed anyway. That was fine with me. The abaya with her today was the same one she'd brought before.

I put on a smile. "Welcome Inmadra and Celravi," I said in abayan, stepping back to allow them into the room. "I buy dumplings. I make tea."

Inmadra looked up at me as she stepped in, fluting out a sound of disappointment. "You have bought dumplings," she corrected firmly. "You will make tea. You should offer tea first, and be mindful of your syntax."

Celravi, who was tall and willowy with a long white crest, hummed under her breath as she drifted to the couch to sit. "I always enjoy dumplings best with tea," she said. "You have the makings of a good host."

I sent Inmadra the worksheets I'd completed while she sat at the little table, and I laid out a tray of dumplings and made tea before scooping up the subdermal knitter again so that I could work on my bruises while we reviewed my exercises (which Inmadra pronounced were less than adequate, which I thought might almost be a compliment). "Sorry," I said as her black stare caught on the flash of silver, "I've started training with a retired pit fighter. I might be a bit, uh, beat up when we meet in person?"

"Hm." She gestured to the tea, so I set down the knitter and poured it into the three arrayed cups. I handed one to her, then took one to Celravi, who smiled at me, and then settled down with my own. "And your sinnenthi approves of this?"

It wasn't the first time she'd asked what Araxis thought about what I was doing. It also wasn't the first time I chose to respond with deflection. "Araxis wants me to do what makes me happy. He's a good sinnenthi. So – how would I say that I've been going to a trainer? I am go to – trainer?"

Inmadra flashed the corrected worksheets back to my wristband, three of them flagged for me to do over, and set to helping me manoeuvre through the intricacies of syntax when I wanted to speak about something I had done and was going to continue doing. By the end of our two hours, my head was starting to throb, but Inmadra had only grimaced at me four times when I tried to muddle my way through a rudimentary exchange of greetings, so that was a win.

Celravi, who had pulled out an actual book – small and pocket-sized – that she was paging through, smiled at me again as they both prepared to leave. "You have a fine ear for our language, Sashen of Creche Thiel," she said happily. "Your sinnenthi must be very proud."

I made all the right noises and finalized the time for our next session – Inmadra did some sort of shift work that was unpredictable, so I worked around her schedule on my personal days – and managed to see them off without admitting that my sinnenthi knew nothing about where I was or what I was doing today. How could he be proud of me when I simply vanished into the station?

After my first day off, Araxis had asked me, very carefully, if I'd had a nice day. When I'd said it had been interesting, expecting to tell him about the tourists in Central and the throbbing lights of Glimmer and the familiar apathy of Radiant, he'd merely smiled and then drifted away to go finish up an agreement he and Vivith had been drafting with Creche Thonen. I'd been left feeling a bit unsteady, as if I'd reached out for him and, instead of catching me, he'd moved away. Jarring, like missing a step.

I'd thought, until then, that what we were doing – with the contract, with our break – was feeling out the edges of what we had. I'd thought that our agreement was a tool we could use to figure out if, how, we could… have something.

Apparently, that wasn't the case. He really was my client. I really was his employee. Our contract had weight and heft. It was real. And so I carefully folded up any expectations I'd had that he might ask me about my day and want to know, that he might pull me close and invite me in, that he might open up for me so that I could feel safe doing that for him too; I folded those up and I tucked them away and I reminded myself, alone in our bedroom where we were playacting as a couple, that I was being paid. This was a job. This was work.

Araxis was my client, and any of the complicated, thorny feelings I had for him had to be put away. So I was doing that, or I was trying to anyway. I could do that. I was good at putting things I didn't need away.

I moved quietly around my little apartment, cleaning up the dishes and setting them carefully to dry before I clicked down the work surface set into one wall and hauled a wobbly chair over to it. The display hummed to life, my wristband syncing with the local server. I opened up the file I'd been compiling for Valerie Prior, logging in through the six layers of encryption she'd set in place on a private media server that, I was sure, was pinging off of relays so obscure that no one would ever think to look there unless they wanted to do research into the mating habits of subspace bacteria.

As soon as I slipped past the final layer of encryption, a cheery line of green text floated up. I winced, rubbing my fingers against my temple. Thanks for the worksheets! More of those please – and send us the ones you've had corrected. Our linguistics team got really excited. I'm not sure I'd get excited about homework these days, but you know. To each their own. She'd attached a series of questions from some of the other people in Perseus, mostly about the creches we'd met with so far and who seemed progressive (and might be open to allying with a new human political entity) and who seemed more traditional. What kinds of things were they negotiating for? What did most creches seem to want? What things would they be willing to trade for, if Perseus could get their hands on the right goods, supplies, services?

I filed the list away for mental reference. That seemed harmless enough. Nothing worse than the gossip we'd traded in at the den.

As I was working in the encrypted interface, uploading and attaching my corrected worksheets, a green message popped up to the side of the display, porting over from my wristband.

You're online!, Valerie wrote from somewhere in the universe. I wanted to ask how are things going with your space prince. All made up?

What could I say to that? I prodded my cheek with my tongue – I'd bitten myself at Tam's – before pushing up from my desk to go grab some water from the kitchen. I hadn't thought to stock up on any pain meds – stupid – so I'd have to deal with this headache with my tried and true method of smiling through the pain.

I was good at that.

So I sat down again, contemplated how honest I wanted to be (not very), and wrote, We're taking a break, which has been good. Starting from square one again. Then, because I had to tell someone, Your advice was good, so thanks for that. We actually drew up a contract. He's paying me and everything. I think having some structure is good. Maybe we can go from there? Be a bit more intentional??

Although, in truth, I wasn't sure how we were supposed to build from this particular foundation. How did you go from lovers to sort-of being married to betrayal to a contractual work relationship to – what, romance?

I was about to log off when another message popped up. As long as he's treating you well, said the green text. Is he at least spoiling you? Taking you out, buying you pretty things, writing you love songs?

I snorted. He's making sure I have days off, and he's leaving me alone to do what I want to do. I've been working with a trainer and you've seen how my language lessons are coming along. And I haven't learned to cook yet, but I'm buying a lot of dumplings with my own money, so that's close?

You did want freedom and a life fully lived!, Val wrote. Which reminds me: keep an eye out for a package. I've rerouted it to your new place in Radiant Ward.

I frowned at the screen, before another message floated to the surface. I know, I know, you didn't tell me, but I have an alert set for your name so I saw the rental agreement come through. Sorry! Is that weird?

This time, I settled on honesty. I mean, it does verge on creepy, Val.

If I'm going to be creepy, I hope it's at least in a helpful way! she responded. Then, Ah, shit, I've gotta go. Target just took off into the sewers. It's always the fucking sewers. This was followed by an illustration of a fluffy animal with six legs, three eyes, and a tail that was drooping morosely.

I stared blankly at the screen, then huffed out an incredulous laugh – a bit tight and pained. Tell me about the sewers when you're back, I wrote, because maybe she was creepy, but I didn't think Valerie would be great at subterfuge over the long-term. Maybe if she talked to me more, I could get a warning if things started to go sideways on me. The more comfortable she felt, the more she might let slip.

Because, sure, I was doing some light spying – sending Perseus my homework, really the stuff of broadcast thrillers – but I was also having my own back. That's what I was doing now.

Even if that meant that sometimes, I let myself down, like by not thinking to buy pain meds.

I looked around my little apartment and checked the time, opening up the Creche Thiel calendar and skimming the days to come. I could, I realized, stay here overnight if I wanted: the next meeting was mid-day tomorrow, so as long as I was back early enough to walk the kids to school, that would be fine. I could sleep here: the bedding was new; the door locked. I could watch as much media as I wanted.

But I knew what would be waiting for me if I tried to sleep here, and I didn't feel like battling those demons, not in my current state.

I flicked the lights off, giving the room one long look. It was lit only by the dim glow from the courtyard outside, or whatever managed to make it through the cloudy polymer anyway. When I'd been in the den, there was nothing I wanted more than security. And here it was: I'd paid for this place from now until when we were scheduled to leave Sozamia for Xitera. This was mine. No one could take it, no one could touch it.

And yet, looking over this little sliver of space down in Radiant Ward, all I felt was an aching hollowness in my chest while my mind still buzzed with a thousand abayan words, each jostling for attention at the edge of my mind. And the one that kept coming to me, an echo rebounding again and again, was elathe.

By myself.

On my own.

A single person.

But my traitorous, wounded mind could only stubbornly translate it to alone.

I turned and locked the door behind me, threading my way through the dwindling crowds and the tunnels connecting all of Sozamia Station so that I could return to Verdant Ward and our creche suite, where I could at least be alone while I was surrounded by other people.

That, too, was familiar at least.