He was already dressed. This was not surprising; he was an early riser, and he was usually dressed before I woke up, but he was dressed nicely, and that struck me as odd. I propped myself up on my elbows and peered at him. “Do you have an appointment?”

He frowned at me and left the room. “Not one I’m about to be late for,” he said as he passed by.

I stumbled out of bed. My one set of clothing sat in a rumpled heap next to my bed. I noticed a stain on the knee of my pants as I put them on, which I knew with unwavering certainty would draw a caustic comment from Shayat. I grew bitter about the deal I’d struck with her, and in my bitterness I took my time. She could wait, I told myself. She should be grateful if I showed at all. I tried to prolong my dawdling by asking Dirva impertinent and personal questions. “You have somewhere to be?” I asked.

“Not so urgently as you do,” he said. He was reading the local Semadran paper, his eyes trained to the page. I could glean nothing from him.

“Who is it with? Not with a Qin.”

“It is not with you, Ariah.”

I lingered in the doorway, my sleepy mind grasping at possibilities. There weren’t terribly many things he kept secret from me by then. There wasn’t much he felt was in need of hiding or discretion. It didn’t take long before I realized where he was going. “Oh.”

Involuntarily, his eyes flicked to where the painting had once hung. “You will be late, Ariah.”

“Yes, I should go.” I slipped out the door a second later. I hadn’t wanted to know, not really. Dirva’s personal life was not a thing either of us were really equipped well to handle. I walked to the tailor’s shop ruminating on this—that I was the one person who knew him well enough to know that he hadn’t let anyone in, and may not let anyone in ever again. I wondered at his motives. Was it a bid to gain legitimacy in the borough? He’d been a bachelor noticeably long, and gossip is a cheap and abundant distraction in a ghetto. Was it an anchor to this life he’d chosen? It’s harder to up and leave when you’re married. I had no answers. I only had the worry and the questions, and a nagging notion that I had already caused too much damage in the City to offer any comfort here in Rabatha.