The late evening sun casts sideways shadows across the Embassy’s Main Loop, and rows of gold and white lights speckle the fronts of restaurants and hotels and shops. People hurry past me, but I walk slowly through the crowds, my eyes searching every face. I still don’t know what I’m going to say. The five-hour hovercraft flight didn’t help. My thoughts have been scrambled ever since I left Lukman’s Café.

Victoria messaged me twenty minutes ago to say Glacia was heading back to the hotel from the northwest sector’s lower maglev station. That means she should be passing this row of restaurants soon. If she looks my way, hopefully there are too many people and she won’t think twice. I want to catch her off-guard. Maybe my mind will be racing so fast that the words will pour out of my mouth and I won’t have to—

There she is.

Glacia is shorter than most people, and her face bobs around shoulder-height thirty yards away. She’s walking this direction but staring into restaurant windows, probably to see what each has for dinner. Her head turns forward when we’re a few yards apart. I’m behind a man, so she doesn’t see me. She looks back at the windows.

Now’s my chance.

I step sideways and bump her shoulder. She jumps, startled, and turns to apologize.

“I’m so sor—”

She doesn’t finish. She stares at me, ignoring the people who have to shuffle around us. Her chin quivers and her lips flit up and down as if they aren’t sure what emotion they’re supposed to show.

“How was training?” I ask her.

“H—how was…” She chokes on a laugh of disbelief, her eyes bright with the light pouring out the nearest window. “How was training?”

She leaps forward and wraps her arms around me, nestling her head on my shoulder. Her hair tickles my chin, and she’s soft to hold again.

“I was there,” I whisper in her ear. “I was at her house.”

Even as I say the words, I don’t totally believe them. I trail off, my eyes staring through the crowd at no one. Glacia steps back and looks up at me.

“And what?”

I bite my lip and my heart thuds harder. Then I suck in a breath and let the next words gage my breathing.

“I left.”

Glacia furrows her brow, confused. “Like, did you get scared or—”

“No, I thought…” I look her in the eye. “I thought about you. And I thought about me. And if—”

This is too hard. Why can’t I make myself say it? She’s even waiting for me to say it. The words are flying through my head, desperate to escape. So I swallow, hard, and say it the simplest way I can.