Dirva glanced at me over his shoulder while the water rose to a boil. “Yes. I would understand not wanting to go there alone, to an unknown person. I have a way, I think, for you to make an informed decision. Should you approve the match, there would be a wedding. He is someone I would invite to the wedding. We are close. We write,” he said. This was, actually, news to me. Even though I picked up what I thought was all of Dirva’s correspondence, it was news to me. “I have mentioned you. What I am saying is that you may need space from me, and you may need training for what you’re finally willing to admit you’ve got, and he may be a solution to both.”

“Can I think on it?”

“You will have months to think on it.”

* * *

I had, perhaps, two days to dwell on the choices ahead of me before life sprang up. The term at Ralah began, and I was to teach Athenorkos and Lothic again. I was on probation, watched carefully, but they had retained my position. This time around, I had no Semadran students at all. Shayat increased our tutoring schedule to three times a week, citing the fact that she wasn’t in classes any longer and that once a week seemed insufficient. I had to agree with her. A week and a half into the term, a few hours before curfew, Dirva and I stood at the door of the matchmaker’s house. He carried a bottle of Semadran wine in his hand, and he stood taut, and he stood smiling.

The matchmaker’s house was deep in the heart of the borough, only a block away from the schoolhouse. I wondered if she had papers. Many shapers don’t; many burn them, go underground, to avoid Qin assignments. We protect them. They are powerful, and they are fragile, and the community rallies for them. I wondered what my life would have been like if the Ardijan shaper had thrust me into this path. I wondered what it must be like to be a matchmaker but yet be closed off from marriage. So many shapers turn matchmaker. I don’t know that I would have done well with that, being faced day after day with a thing and a life I wanted but could never have. Dirva could feel the thoughts the matchmaker’s house kicked up in me. “Ariah,” he whispered. “Shh.” I tried to focus on the rhythm of my breath with limited success.