Been too long since it’s rained, Kalico noted as she squinted up at the brassy sky.

Donovan’s axis wasn’t as inclined as Earth’s. Seasons weren’t as pronounced here.

In Kalico’s ear bud, Talina’s voice informed, “We’re coming in from the south. Be on the ground in five minutes.”

“Roger that,” Two Spot replied.

Kalico shaded her eyes with a flat palm, stared south, and picked up the dot as Talina’s aircar appeared over the distant bush.

A nervous tension began to wind itself through her gut. Anxious for them to land, unsettled at the changes in their relationship. She’d caught it, the change of inflection, as Talina had been talking to Two Spot on the way in. Something intimate in the way she said, “we.” And lying just below the surface the words hid a familiarity, the kind shared by two people who had passed beyond the boundaries of “just friends.”

But then, that’s not exactly a surprise, is it, Kalico?

She filled her lungs, flexed the muscles in her arms and shoulders, letting Capella bake her black coveralls. The sweat it raised served her like the flagellation of a penetente.

“You’ve been down this road. Made your decision with your head, so don’t let your heart get in the way just because you’re a jealous slit.”

Nope. No matter what, she’d be the same tough and pragmatic Kalico Aguila she’d always been. Problem was, she’d been letting herself stray from that hard-hearted and cunning woman. It was well past time to bring her back.

She walked out as Talina circled, lowered her battered aircar, and the fans blew dust out from her longtime parking spot next to the fence. In the cabin, Dek was seated in the passenger seat, his tousled, sandy hair awry, eyes meeting Kalico’s as the aircar spooled down.

Dek was the first out, vaulting the rail, reaching for his rifle and war bag. The former dangling from one hand, the latter slung over his shoulder, he was walking with a leonine grace in his strides that she’d never seen before.

She almost did a double take. Was this really . . . Yes. That dimple, the pink scar from where he’d blown up the Unreconciled’s armed drone. The general shape of the face. But something about his eyes, still green-tinged and yellow, but the pupils where alien. Quetzal. Like Talina’s and Kylee’s.

“So,” she mused, “It’s true.”

“It’s true,” Dek told her, the old insolent Taglioni grin bending his lips. “Sorry, old friend, but I’m Donovan’s now. As much as I’d like to throw what I’ve become in Father’s face, I’ll never leave here alive.”

“How’s the madness?” she couldn’t help but ask, a bitterness rising within.

“Under control,” he told her.