“And you,” Orfeus said, and looked over her shoulder. This part of the room was less cluttered than it could be. A few of the chairs weren’t covered with the devices, loose wires and mysterious small humming things that otherwise coated every surface. A little behind Em sat the person she’d come to see, a Vietnamese woman built more solidly than Em, short and fat, wholly focused on directing a beeping wand at some mechanism. Same old Bright, her face studded with piercings, hair dyed violently red and a grin like a lightning bolt. Symmetrical designs were tattooed all up her arms and legs, reminiscent of circuitry. In her black shirt and cutoff shorts, she was the most brilliant person Orfeus knew. “Hey, Bright. Any new breakthroughs?”

“Hey, Orf,” the woman said without looking up. Bright was thankfully the only person who called her that. “Who’s your friend?”

“Rivasoa, she and her, the albatross around my neck,” Orfeus said.

Bright nodded, her attention fixed. She twisted the wand and it flickered its lights a bit. Whatever the mechanism was flickered its lights too, and then spluttered out. Bright sat back in her chair with a huff.

She laid the wand down on what looked like it had once been a nicely arranged dining table and looked at Rivasoa curiously. “Is that an Elder? Here? How did you wrangle that one?”

“Reverse psychology,” Orfeus said. “I did my very best to convince them it was the last thing I wanted, and unfortunately they believed me.” She waved between the tall grave Elder and the two residents of Farflung. “Rivasoa, this is Em and Bright, both she and her, both very brilliant. Bright is… my contact.”

“And your friend, right?” Bright said. She turned in her chair and picked up a cloth, dusting it carefully between the grooves of the mechanism. “I think we’re friends.”

“And my friend,” Orfeus agreed. “Em, meanwhile, is just my friend.”

“There goes that famous silver tongue,” Em said dryly. She walked past her girlfriend, patting absentmindedly at Bright’s shoulder along the way, and picked up a cup of something steaming and fragrant.