“Always,” Surit said agreeably. He fell in beside Tennal in a way that felt natural. Surit hadn’t lost his measured officer’s stride, and after all those weeks, Tennal’s pace was nearly the same. “You said flatbread.”

“If I can find any,” Tennal said. “Everything’s changed since I lived here.” A flock of birds darted overhead, flashes of blue and white wings against the burnished gold of the sky.

They strolled away from the new buildings of stone and glass to a district of low crumbling walls. Tennal found a cart selling drinks, and they both got flatbread and cold glasses of sugarmint, the condensation dripping off the glass and blissfully chilling Tennal’s hand. The citrus taste was sharper than Tennal remembered.

They stopped under a flowering tree. Surit leaned against it, and Tennal sat on the back of a bench. He didn’t even have to watch Surit anymore—he still had that sense of his presence, like a constant pulse left over from the sync—but he did anyway. Surit looked at home, Tennal thought. But of course he did; Surit looked at home in most places.

“Sorry it’s been a couple of days,” Tennal said. “I had to get my head sorted out.”

Surit had been peering up at the sky through the tree branches in fascination, as if it had been a while since he’d seen blossoms, but at that he focused his full attention and his sober brown eyes on Tennal. “What have you sorted out?”

“I think I missed you like a normal person, these past few days,” Tennal said, as if that made any sense. “Or as close to normal as I can get. It’s not the sync. It’s just … you.”

Surit didn’t immediately answer, his expression complicated, and Tennal felt like he’d thrown himself off a cliff.

“I missed you too,” Surit said. Then, before Tennal could fully process that: “How long?”

Tennal knew what he was asking. “Six months,” he said. “I’ve seen the agreement. The Resolution has to give back our nationals when they say they will. It’s in all the treaties; Zin checked the language. Six months from now, I should be right here again.”

Surit still had that distant, obscure look on his face. Tennal’s heart hammered. He’d known rejection was possible, but he hadn’t accepted that, not really. He’d never made himself this vulnerable before.

“I tried to go too,” Surit said at last.

“What?”

“I asked the treaty team,” Surit said. “You should have someone you know with you. But if they’re assigning an escort team, they don’t want architects, and they don’t believe I’m not one.”