Then she was kissing him and he was kissing her. Tongue curled against tongue. The salt of her in his mouth. A hunger. A need. His hand between her muscular thighs. His cock in her hand. A pulse. A current that made him want to touch, to kiss, every part of her. Warmth and softness at his fingertips. Burning in her hand. An intake of breath. A little sighing cry. He turned and turned until he was above her, his forearms brushing her shoulders. Moaned as he slid into her and kept kissing her. Dissolving his poisoned thoughts. Not thinking at all. Becoming someone else.

She felt so good that he had to stop for a moment. Locked his elbows to hold himself up over her, looked into her eyes, her hands on his chest.

“I love your neck,” he said, and kissed it. “And your eyes.” Kissed her eyelids. He could see her better now, light colonizing shadows.

She wasn’t smiling back. Wasn’t responding.

“John,” she said, looking worried. “John, you’re crying blood.”

She wiped a too-dark tear away with her finger.

“Am I?” he said, trying to smile, and came with a long shuddering groan before the thought could hit him.

Occupational hazard.

Later. Lying in bed together. Feral pushing his head against a bedpost, already wanting breakfast. The blood tears had stopped almost as soon as they’d started. Remembered Wyte had told him it could be an after-effect of eating memory bulbs. It hadn’t hurt. It had just surprised him. He’d daubed his eyes clean with a bathroom towel. Had stared for a moment at the worn face of the stranger trapped in the cracked mirror.

A desert fortress. An army of silent gray caps. And Ethan Bliss, Frankwrithe & Lewden’s top man for so many years.

Pushed the thoughts aside. Sintra would have to leave soon. The place on the back of her neck where she liked to be kissed. Soft brown hairs. Crisp salt taste.

“How was your work yesterday?” he asked her, holding her tightly to him. Skin so warm against his body.

“The same as always.”

What did that mean?

“The same as always,” Finch echoed. “That’s good.”

“I guess,” she said. She sounded distracted.

Still didn’t know what Sintra did, or even where she lived. Remnants of the Dogghe and Nimblytod had carved out a defiant kingdom for themselves in the ruined Religious Quarter. But Sintra might not even think of herself as one of them, integrated into the city. He’d never asked. Sometimes he daydreamed of her being a rebel agent. Comforting. Utterly unreal. But that didn’t matter.

“I’m lonely. Even with you.”

“Someday, it will be different…”

That she preferred him not knowing hurt him. Even though he understood the sense of it. Even though they made a game out of it.

“Where do you work?”

“In the city.”

“And what do you do?”

“Answer questions. Apparently.”