“Your third,” Ayla had said.

“Fourth,” Crier had replied, giving her a soft, significant look, and Ayla had yelled and fled the room and then come back to take Crier’s face in her hands and kiss her hard and then fled again, cheeks burning.

Anyway. It was summer and the air in Yanna smelled of salt and Crier’s eyes were brown again, and it was good.

“C’mon,” Ayla wheedled. “One story.”

“Why don’t you just find one and read it yourself?” Crier said.

“Just because I can read now doesn’t mean I want to do it all the time,” Ayla said. “Besides, haven’t I mentioned? I like your storytelling voice.”

Crier hummed. “You’ve mentioned.”

“This is me mentioning it again.”

“Careful,” said Crier. “I might get the impression you’re fond of me.”

Ayla made a face at her. “Wouldn’t want that.”

“No, never.” She smiled up at Ayla, everything about it warm and gentle in a way that still felt impossible sometimes. Still made Ayla nervous, sometimes, because in her experience the warm and gentle things didn’t last; they just burned. But she was trying. Always, she was trying. “What if instead of reading you an old story, I tell you a new one?”

Ayla raised her eyebrows, intrigued. “You’ll make it up?”

“I could.” Oh, she was being shy. “I’ve been . . . trying it out. In my head.”

“Tell me your story,” said Ayla, then sat up a little. “Wait—I almost forgot. Hook ’n’ Erren want to say goodbye before we leave the city again. We’re to meet them at the Dancing Fox. Hook said to bring weapons, just in case Bree insists on swindling innocent patrons out of their coin.”

“All right. Story, Dancing Fox, then home?”

“Then home.” They were set to depart the city at dusk, to reach the palace by midnight. The palace. Home. It wasn’t home, not forever, but there was still so much to be done—after Hesod’s trial and subsequent imprisonment, and the confirmation that there would not be another sovereign, Crier had taken it upon herself to turn the palace into a sort of patchwork house of science. The east wing was a hospital, the west wing a series of laboratories Ayla frequented, as they were researching ways in which certain properties of the Automae—faster healing, sharper eyesight—could benefit human lives. Ayla’s leg had been a starting point. Midwife Jezen worked in that wing, and some days Ayla found herself visiting just to say hello.

The members of the new council often gathered in the north wing, which meant Ayla could see Storme and Benjy, both of whom had positions in Queen Junn’s court, Storme as the ever-loyal adviser and Benjy as a representative of Rabu. Ayla and Storme were still relearning each other, making up for the lost years, growing steadily closer. It was different with Benjy. There was a distance between them, small but noticeable, that had not existed before. There were things they had to relearn about each other as well. But they, too, were growing more together than apart. Ayla refused to lose him, and Benjy refused to let her, and they were both stubborn enough to make it work.