“But they can still be nice and steamy for a while, right?” I ask, still holding on to a thin thread of hope.

“Scorpia,” she says, her voice more serious now, the playfulness from before gone. “If things were different…” She hesitates, stops, starts again. “But they’re not. We have so much else to worry about right now. I don’t think either of us could afford such a…” Her eyes flicker over me, and she bites her lip. “Distraction.”

I hold her gaze for a moment before folding my arms behind my head and looking up at the ceiling.

“Well, you know, they have this saying on Titan—”

“Scorpia!”

I jump at the sound of my name called down the stairs, abruptly straightening and brushing off the front of my jumpsuit as if I was caught doing something wrong. Shey presses a gloved hand to her lips to stifle a laugh, and I step around the cargo crates to look up at Lyre at the top of the stairs.

“What?” I ask, unable to hide my annoyance at the interruption.

“Corvus is making dinner,” she says. Her eyes shift past me to Shey as she steps out from the crates, and she frowns. “It’ll be ready in thirty minutes. Don’t be late.”

She disappears. Rubbing the back of my neck, I glance at Shey.

“She didn’t seem happy,” she says.

“She rarely is.” I shrug. “So. Thirty minutes. You want to go somewhere more private? Such as… my room?”

“You said there wasn’t enough room in there to practice bowing.”

“No, but there’s room for plenty of other things.”

She glances up at me in a way that makes my heart race with hope.

“Actually,” she says. “I have a better idea.”

I suppress a sigh, hope withering.

“And that is?”

She drops her eyes to the floor. All at once she becomes almost shy.

“Well… I’ve never seen Nibiru before,” she says, as though it’s an embarrassing admittance. “Aside from pictures, and the sky, I mean, but that hardly counts.”

I can’t help but grin despite the still-lingering disappointment.

“Ah, yes, the sheltered Gaian.” She shoots me an unimpressed look, and I shrug and smile. “I didn’t get a real education, but I’ve seen every planet in the system up close and personal. Pretty sure that counts for more.”

Shey sighs.

“Stop bragging and show me Nibiru already,” she says, the corners of her mouth lifting.