“I should really …” Beq murmured. At the look on Maya’s face, though, she trailed off and took a deep breath. “Okay.”

“You kissed me,” Maya said. Her hand came up automatically to brush the Thing. “I kissed you. We kissed each other. Whichever.”

“We … did.” Beq’s freckled cheeks were flushing.

“And then you …”

“Ran away.” Beq’s hands twisted the hem of her shirt between them. “I know.”

“You don’t need to explain.” Maya closed her eyes. “I just want to know if … if you would be interested in kissing me again. At some point. When you’re ready.”

Silence. Maya waited, trembling, not daring to open her eyes and look at Beq’s face.

She nearly started at the feel of hot breath against her cheek. Then Beq’s lips pressed against hers, hesitantly. Maya stood stock-still, frozen, until Beq pulled away.

“Oh,” she said. When she opened her eyes, Beq was already facing the door. “Okay.”

“Okay.”

“I’ll see you.” Maya’s brain didn’t seem to be working quite right. “Tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow.”

Beq moved forward, mechanically, and nearly bumped into the door when she missed the latch. She grabbed it at the last minute, swung around it like they were partners in a dance, and stumbled out into the corridor. Maya could hear her drunken footsteps receding into the distance.

Okay. Maya touched her lips, which still tingled from the contact. Okay.

*

Jaedia should have been at the top of her mind. Her mentor was in danger. Maybe hurt, captured. Not dead. Maya refused to even think that, refused to admit the possibility that she wouldn’t arrive in time. But she felt that she should be going into her rescue mission with nothing on her mind but worry for Jaedia (and Marn, when she remembered him) and grim determination.

And she could summon those emotions, when she tried. When she wasn’t trying, though, her mind … wandered.

Two weeks on the road. The Gate wasn’t far from Uqaris, on the border between the Republic and the Kingdom of Grace, but it was a long, slow trip north, even along the old Chosen road to the kingdom’s eponymous capital. Two weeks’ riding on the back of a wagon as the loadbirds plodded along, keeping watch for plaguespawn, concealing her true identity. Two weeks sharing a tent at nights with the most beautiful girl in the world, with whom she’d reached an agreement that they wanted to further investigate this kissing business.

It was this last thought that had made it hard to sleep. Maya wondered if she was the only centarch of the Twilight Order to spend the night before her first mission masturbating until she was sore. On reflection, she decided, probably not.