Rhea cleared her throat. “You should eat something. You’ve been up here for hours.”

“I can’t stand the thought of more sawdust food.”

Rhea sighed. “Me neither. So much red cheese flatbread that tastes nothing like cheese. All I want is a fresh piece of fruit. Especially a sweet, juicy papaya.”

Clo’s eyes lit up. “Ohh, yes. I ate a papaya for breakfast every time I could pinch one from the stalls.”

Rhea’s tilted her head. “I didn’t think they had papayas in Kersh.”

“Not in the Snarl,” Clo said, clearing her throat. “The stalls were near the high-rises. Every morning, the servants would take the elevator down and gather meals for their masters. Sometimes, I was able to get past the guards.” She shrugged. “Sometimes not.”

Clo thought she heard Rhea suck in a breath. “Was it worth it? Just for fruit?”

“It was more to pretend, just for a moment, that I lived in those high-rises above the clouds. That was worth the beatings.”

“I never thought about where those papayas came from. Who grew them, how they moved from tree to the breakfast table,” Rhea said. She shifted to the copilot’s seat, leaving a trail of sweet perfume. She was close enough to touch. “I rarely went hungry. I never had to steal. I was pampered.”

“You were trapped too,” Clo said gently. “We just had different cages, that’s all.” At least Clo had been able to leave her building, to see the sky. She’d found some fractured pieces of freedom down in the depths of the Snarl.

“I’m sorry, anyway.”

“Sorry’s such a bullshit word, isn’t it?” Clo adjusted the controls. “Says so much and bog-all at the same time. But aye, I’m sorry too.” She looked over at Rhea. “Is there anything good you miss?”

Rhea considered that for a moment, a fingertip tracing her collarbone. “It’s silly, but I miss lilies the most.”

“Lilies?”

“Yes. I’d have fresh ones from the greenhouse delivered to my room every morning. The old ones gone before they even had a chance to wilt. A different color every day, but that same, sweet scent. No man ever sent me those. I asked the servants and they brought them. They weren’t really mine, though—they belonged to Tholos. To Damocles. But I pretended they were.” She stopped, as if embarrassed.

“Is that your perfume?” Clo asked. “Lilies?”

Rhea smiled. “Yes, but it’s a pale, pale echo of the scent of fresh ones. What do you miss?”