She whistled. “Why not leave?”

“Nuri. Dirva’s son.” I took her hand. She looked over at me. “This match is a farce. But we’re not. You should come to my place. We should…we should think this through, see where this can go.”

She let go of my hand. She shook her head. “This was a mistake,” she said, and then she left.

She said it was a mistake, but she came to my place anyway three days later. I was changing out of my work clothes, and it was Sorcha who opened the door. Our apartment was just that single room and a cramped bathroom crammed in a refurbished closet. He opened the door; I was half-naked and in her line of sight, but my back was turned. “Shayat,” he said. I stood up very straight, but I was not brave enough to turn around.

“Sorcha, you look well,” she said. “I brought you this.”

The door closed. The deadbolt slid into place. “Where did you get this?” he asked. His voice was hushed, half-whisper.

I looked over my shoulder. It was a jar of herb. Sorcha unscrewed the top, and its fragrance poured out. “Bardondour. That’s mountain herb,” I said. I looked at Sorcha; he grinned. I looked at Shayat, and she grinned an identical grin.

“Let’s smoke,” Sorcha said.

I put a hand on his arm. “Shayat, what are you here for?”

She leaned against the door. She drank us in, the two of us standing there together. “Well, you know I love to negotiate. I thought the three of us could come up with an, uh…Sorcha, how did you put it that day in the desert?” She snapped her fingers, and her grin turned hopeful and wicked. “An arrangement. Let’s make an arrangement.”

“I can’t smoke,” I said, though I very much wanted to. “I’m on the line right after curfew lifts tomorrow morning.”

Sorcha breathed in the smell of the herb. The smell alone seemed to get him high: he was only half-present, distracted, with a lazy grin on his face. Shayat glanced around. “You don’t have a chair?”

“Nah,” Sorcha said.

“Not a single one?”

“Nah.”

She slipped off her boots and sat on the edge of our sleeping mats. My eyebrows shot up. Sorcha sat down next to her. “You smoking?”

She smiled. She cut a glance at me. “Yes. I am.”

“Since when?” I asked.

“The compounders don’t trust elves who don’t smoke,” she said. “Unless your name is Tamir and they owe you a debt, you have to learn to smoke.”

“You didn’t smoke when we were there with you.”

“Not that you saw,” she said. Sorcha laughed. He rifled through his things, looking for his pipe.

“I can’t smoke! The line!”