I studied her profile. She stared up at the ceiling, one arm tucked beneath her head. Her red hair—a bright, golden red—was pooled around her, looped over an arm here, tucked under a shoulder there. Her nose was sharp. Beads of sweat dotted her forehead, glinting in the fickle light of oil lamps strewn throughout the room. “I am, and I’m not.”

She frowned slightly. “You lot, you always talk in riddles.”

I sat up and ran a hand through my hair. My limbs felt loose and long. “Don’t.”

“Don’t what?”

“Don’t talk about Semadrans like you know anything about us. Are you hungry?”

“I don’t know. What have you got?”

“Eggs. Bread. Apples.”

“Bacon?” she asked.

“I don’t eat meat.”

“That’s to do with…”

“Yes,” I said. I stood up and went towards the pantry. “That’s to do with being Semadran. I’ll make you eggs.”

She was gone by the time Sorcha returned. I was curled up in bed by then, still naked. A laziness came over me after sex, a willful luxuriance of my own skin. There are times I still get that way. He shook my shoulder until I woke up. I sat up, blinking at him, wincing in the light of the lamp he’d lit. “Hey, you all right?” he asked.

“I’m fine. Have to get up tomorrow. Douse the lamp.”

“I will in a second. Ariah, you all right? Really all right?”

I fell back into the bed and pulled a blanket up over my eyes. “I’m fine.”

“Last time you weren’t.”

“This time was different. I remember it.”

He was quiet for a long time. The room grew dark, and I felt him slide into the bed next to me. His arm wound around my ribs, and my hand patted his forearm. His face tucked into the space between my shoulder blades. “Nice to see you not scared for once,” he said softly. “That girl’s a terror.”

I laughed. “She is. You know, she really is. I made her eggs, and she complained about them the whole time she ate them.”

Sorcha laughed and held me a little tighter. “Ariah, you silly git, you didn’t have to cook for her. Could’ve just sent her on her way.”

“Well, I was hungry. It only seemed fair to offer her some food, too.”

Sorcha laughed again. “You got your memory, you said?”

“I did.”

“Well. That’s something. I’m glad you got it.”

* * *