Shayma Hepzah’Brahim stared down at the lantern for a long, long moment. She smirked. “Shayat Bachel’Parvi has expressed an interest in you. Go back to your man, Ariah Lirat’Mochai. You have things to discuss with him. I’ll send Biral for you when it’s time to speak again.”

I crept back home. There were still some four hours yet before my shift at the factory began. I crawled into bed and sat beside Sorcha. I watched him sleep for a little while. I nudged him awake. He rolled onto his back and blinked up at me. He glanced out the window, and back at me. “Why’re you dressed? They change your shift?”

“I’ve been out.”

He propped himself up on his elbows. “You’ve been out? It’s well past curfew.”

“That girl who came by this afternoon…”

“Are you in trouble? Did I get you in trouble?”

“Do you know her?”

“No,” he said. “Should I?” I sighed. He rolled his eyes and took refuge under a blanket. “Not again.”

It was, by then, an old argument. Why did he need someone else when I was right there? What did they give him that I didn’t? The familiar questions lodged in my throat, held in place by the specter of this match.

Sorcha pulled down the blanket. He gave me a curious look. I curled up around him, still fully dressed, and he nestled against me. He took my hand and kissed it. “Shayat is back,” I said.

“Is she?”

“She’s hired a matchmaker.”

Sorcha squeezed my hand. “Well, she don’t know what she’s missing.”

I tucked my face into the nape of his neck and breathed in the smell of him. It was a test of sorts: did I still want him, this? I did. I very much did. But, still, the teasing possibility of Shayat lingered. “She…she might know. She expressed an interest in me.”

Sorcha rolled over onto his back and turned to face me. “She did?”

“She did.”

“She’s been gone for years, and she rolls into town and hires a matchmaker?”

“Apparently.”

“But why? You’d have her if she came calling, I’m sure you would. Why the formality?”

“Well, I…you know, all I can do is speculate. I am likely far off base. I can’t say for sure. She said once Parvi wanted her to get married, and it might make sense for her to marry to quash certain rumors about her.”

“Married?” he asked.

“Well, that’s what matchmakers do: broker marriage. They don’t do anything else, really. So, it might make sense for her to marry. Just…uh, just…it might make sense, but it wouldn’t make any sense at all for her to marry me.”

“Unless she wants to marry you for you,” he said.