Rhea tried to keep her expression gentle. She didn’t want to discourage Clo, didn’t want to show any judgment. Part of her work in the Pleasure Garden had been listening. It had been the part she found the most rewarding. “Did she?”

“Yes. She—” Clo let out a breath and ran her hand across her buzzed hair. “No . . . that’s a lie. It was me.” Clo looked at Rhea. “Still don’t like her, but I’m trying to let it go. Can’t change it.”

“None of us can change what’s happened to us, but we can work on making things better.”

Clo raised her glass. “Wrong thing to toast with, but cheers.” They clinked their water glasses.

Clo’s eyes lingered on Rhea’s face. It would be so easy to lean forward, to close the distance and distract them both from what was to come. But was that truly what they needed? Or was Rhea defaulting to how she dealt with emotions in the Pleasure Garden? Sex as a weapon, as protection, as distraction. And sometimes, as comfort.

“Thank you,” Rhea said. “For the dances.”

“You’re welcome.” Clo chuckled to herself, and Rhea couldn’t tell if it was in sadness or joy. Perhaps both. “I haven’t danced like that since . . . gods, since I was a kid in the Snarl loitering outside the clubs.”

Rhea didn’t know anything about life on other planets, let alone in the slums, but that explained the hint of dialect lurking in Clo’s swearing. Rhea had never met someone natural-born before. “You lived on Myndalia, then. One of my clients was an officer stationed there. I didn’t know they had clubs.”

“Practically one on every corner in the Snarl. Places where people would dance and take”—she shifted her gaze away and shrugged—“stuff. You know, to forget. It’s easier to forget you’re starving when you’re too salted to give a shit. The Empire provides the drugs, passes ’em around like sweets. Keeps us natural-born dependent on the high, so we never resist. Just another tool of control.”

Rhea’s life in the Pleasure Garden—as vast as the garden was—had been a cage. The walls there were so high, so impossible to climb. Rhea would often stare up at the stars and wonder what it was like to travel, what it was like beyond those vast walls.

There were whole worlds. People like Clo. People from different lands, and she wanted to learn about it all.

“And you?” Tell me about your strange slang. About the scars on your hands. About your life in the Snarl. The things you’ve seen. Tell me everything. “Did you go to the clubs to forget too?”

“No. I just wanted to dance.”