He trailed off, watching me expectantly. I squeezed my eyes shut, resting my forehead against my knees. “I don’t know, Ceilos. I don’t know what happened. She said so many strange things, she was acting so bizarre. None of it made any sense.” Unless she meant the time postern. But how could she have known about that, days before Isaak appeared? And then that message she left for me in her apartment. The scene from my dream played over again in my mind. The cracking earth, the mountain peaks. The sky engulfed with fire.

Elytherios.

“Did she say anything about the Liberator?” Ceilos asked. His voice sounded strange, and he had an odd look on his face—I’d never seen that look before.

I lifted my shoulders like I’d seen Isaak do. “I don’t know. Everything she said was off. I don’t even remember half of it now.” I stretched my legs out, leaning my head back against the wall and looking up at the ceiling. “I’m just so tired, Ceilos.”

He frowned. “Nadin, maybe you should take a break. I can watch Isaak tomorrow—”

“No!” I blurted. He stared at me, mouth agape. “That’s my assignment. I have to prove myself to the geroi. For…” I glanced at him, then looked away. “For our future.”

He put his hand on top of mine, his palm over the back of my hand, long fingers threaded through mine. “I’m your partner, Nadin. No matter what Tibros says. You should be able to share some of your burden with me.”

I smiled, but the little niggle of worry from earlier began to gnaw at the back of my mind again. “Ceilos,” I said, “did you see those plivoi in the square earlier?”

“The ones the Enforcers arrested?”

“Yes. Did you see them before that? At the fountain?”

“I saw them when I was making my way over to you. I didn’t pay them much attention.”

I inhaled. “Did you think… what they were doing was… normal?”

Ceilos chuckled. “They are a bit more expressive than patroi,” he said with a grin. “But, you know… most patroi partnerships are arrangements of convenience. Caste, status, genetic traits—those are the things that matter. But I think… I think we’re different, aren’t we?” He shifted onto his knees, scooting in front of me. Slowly, gently, he cupped my cheek in his palm. “You’re not just a business arrangement to me.”

My eyes stung, but I blinked back the tears and tugged my earlobe with my right hand. “I care more about you than anyone else on Iamos,” I told him.

Ceilos smiled, the kind that spread from his lips to his eyes and lit up his whole face. The smile that was only for me. “Then I think this is completely normal.”