My eyes narrowed. “Did you leave trays for the rest of my crew?”

“No, although I did provide them with food.” His eyes sparkled. “I do it for you because I enjoy taking care of you.”

My cheeks heated, and I cleared my throat, thrown by the simple honesty in the words. “Well, thank you. I appreciate it.” I glanced around at the greenery that was barely visible. The light made it feel like Torran and I were enclosed in our own little bubble, and I began to see the appeal. “Where’s Luna?”

Torran turned and pointed just off to our left.

I held the light up, and it caused the burbu’s normally violet eyes to reflect a bright, glowing blue from deep in the leaves of a short tree. “Did Torran feed you, hmm, or are you out here hunting for a tasty snack?”

Luna chirruped at me and leapt for my shoulder. I turned to absorb her momentum and scratched her under the chin. She sent me a wave of affection. “I missed you, too, darling,” I murmured.

Torran watched us with an unreadable expression.

“Is everything ready for tonight?” I asked. “No new updates?”

“Nothing has changed since this morning. Nilo has been monitoring the bug they planted, but he hasn’t heard anything.”

“And he’s sure that we can get in?”

“Yes.” Torran stepped closer. “What is bothering you? Do you regret this morning?”

“What? No. This morning was fantastic, but I always worry about operations, especially one with this many unknowns. And our bounties don’t usually have a chance of leading to an interstellar war.” I laughed without humor. “Or a public execution.”

“You will not die,” Torran said, his voice firm. “I will not allow it.”

I nodded and turned for the house. “In that case, let’s go over the plan again.”

We spent the rest of the day planning, preparing, and practicing. After dinner, my team and I packed all our stuff onto a levcart and left it in the hallway. If we found Cien, we wouldn’t have a lot of time to make our escape, so we needed to be ready to leave as soon as we returned.

Once the packing was finished, we all took a couple of hours for ourselves because we wouldn’t leave until the darkest part of the night.

I returned to my suite with Luna. If Torran wasn’t set on keeping the damn life debt, I would’ve invited him to join me so we could both blow off some steam. Instead, I watched a vid in Valovan that I didn’t understand and thought about all the ways the job could go wrong.

Luna snuggled herself into my lap, and I absently petted her while plotting how to keep my people safe in the event everything went massively sideways. It was something I did before every big job, but it seemed especially important this time.