It took a little over a month before Biral appeared again at my door. It took long enough that I had begun to suspect, with some relief, that Shayat had been warned off or lost interest, and the courtship had died before it began. Sorcha was tender with me in those weeks. He was careful, and he was sweet, but he threw up the highest, most formidable walls he could manage. The walls were broken in places, the walls had chinks, but they did give him some measure of privacy. The walls terrified me. They made me feel I was walking in a minefield, always one step away from a violent end. I mentioned it once—I was a little drunk, I drank now and again when I had a rare day off—and Sorcha grinned at me. “What?”

“Look, there are more of us than there are of you.”

“More of you?”

“Yeah,” he said. “Most of us don’t got your talents. Most of us aren’t shapers. We got to just fend for ourselves without dropping all those eaves everywhere.”

Until Biral knocked on the door, that was as close as either of us could seem to get to talking about the match. She came, smirked, and handed me a note. The matchmaker requested a meeting in two days’ time after my shift was over. Sorcha leaned against the wall. “That was that shaper girl again?”

I held up the paper. “The matchmaker wants to see me.”

“When?”

“The day after tomorrow.”

Sorcha raised his eyebrows. “Hmm,” he said, and then crossed the room.

I followed him. He half-turned, began to say something, but I didn’t give him the chance. I pulled him to me, and I kissed him. The gift poured out of me, and I lost myself. I gave him everything he wanted effortlessly. It was a heartfelt, willing submission. I came to myself again in stages. It was dark; after curfew, and Sorcha lay half-asleep beside me. He was naked, and he was beautiful. I stretched, and he felt the movement and looked over. He fingered my chest hair, a lazy smile on his face. “You shapers,” he said. He whistled.

I blushed and hid my face in my hands. He asked me if I was all right. “I am. I’m fine.”

“Should we not have?”

“No, no. No, I wanted to. I did.”

“Been awhile since you let your gift out like that,” he said. And it had been. Even with Sorcha, sex sober was rare for me. Even with him the aftermath was disorienting. The lack of clear memories never became less disturbing, but with him, at least I always felt safe. With him it did not feel dangerous. He sat up and pulled me up with him. He kissed me and held my face in his hands. “You don’t got to convince me to stick around, you fool.”