Caledonia crossed the office they’d claimed for its proximity to the wharf and pushed through the side door that emptied into a narrow alley lined with orange solar pips. Just beyond the end of the alley, the main thoroughfare buzzed with activity. The rest of the city might have been thinly populated, but with her crews here, the wharf felt very much alive.

Caledonia drew a deep breath and regretted it immediately, bracing a hand lightly at her side and squeezing her eyes shut as pain radiated from everywhere inside her at once.

“I can get another draught of painkiller from Hime,” Pisces offered.

“No,” Caledonia said, voice pressed thin. “Not yet.”

Pisces nodded, waiting for Caledonia to regain control of herself. They hadn’t had a moment alone, no time to discuss all that had happened both in the battle and after it, and the air between them was growing thicker with each passing hour.

“I’m going to get Donnally from the prison. I want a room prepared for him when I get back.” Caledonia took a shallow breath, gingerly testing her lungs. “Unless you have something to say to me first?”

They’d known each other too long to bother hiding when one of them was upset. Caledonia recognized the purse of Pisces’s lips and the way she pushed a breath out through her nose. Pisces wasn’t furious with her. This was a simmering kind of distress.

“No,” Pisces answered. “Do you want him in the barracks with us?”

“I do. Thank you.” Caledonia wanted to press Pisces to clear the air between them, but she’d acknowledged the tension. She had to let Pisces make the next move. “Third floor. Near me.”

“Yes, Captain.”

Though it wasn’t said with cruelty, Caledonia winced at the title as Pisces turned and left her alone in the alley. Caledonia leaned her back against the wall and tipped her head up to study the narrow strip of sky above. Dusk colored wispy clouds in shades of the bruises along Caledonia’s body and the first pinprick lights of stars were starting to push through the gloaming. Solitary moments like this were fleeting, and her thoughts were starting to tangle around each other. Pisces wasn’t happy with her, and Caledonia didn’t have to reach very far to find the reason for it. But she also didn’t know what to do about it. She’d made the decision, used the star blossom bombs in a crucial moment that turned the tide of battle. She couldn’t undo it.

Pisces was right to be horrified, and with that alone, Caledonia agreed.

She let the cold stone soothe her aching back and then she pulled her knotted emotions back inside and pushed off the wall.