Silence wrapped around them and Leo dreaded the moment when Rahel would return. The girl was exhausting. There was a clock on the mantel that ticked loudly and his heart picked up speed with each passing second. There was nothing he could do in this moment, no way to escape and no idea of what would happen when they reached Ithilia. Finally the quiet grew too much to bear.

“What would you be doing right now?” he asked Sera, the words rushed to cover his increasing panic. “If you had never come here.”

She seemed relieved by the question, as if she had been fighting against the silence as well. “I would likely be working in the stargem mines,” she said. “That was my next apprenticeship. Though I do not think I would have been any better at that than I was at cloudspinning, or tending the seresheep, or working in the orchards.” She poked at a gelatin mold and watched its thick green body undulate. “There was meant to be a wedding season coming, that’s what Koreen said. I’d never seen a wedding season before. I was so excited.”

“You have a season for weddings?” Leo asked, leaving the window to take a seat on the couch beside her chair.

She nodded. “And a birthing season follows after. I was born at the end of the last birthing season, so there has not been a wedding season in my lifetime yet.”

“Did you . . .” Leo cleared his throat. “Was there someone—well, two someones—who you wanted to marry?”

“Oh, no,” Sera said, and Leo felt a selfish pang of relief. “No, I . . . Leela had been kissed, but not me.” She twined her fingers together and glanced at the door Rahel had gone through. “I did not think that sort of love was meant for me.”

“But you do now?” he asked, tensing in anticipation of her response.

“I know it,” she replied. Leo was certain she could hear his heart pounding through bone and skin and muscle.

“What happened to change your mind?”

She turned to him and her eyes were a burst of refreshing blue in the golden room. “I came to this planet,” she said. “And discovered I am attracted to males.”

She confessed it as if it were the easiest thing in the world, as if she could not hear the bells ringing out inside Leo’s chest. This was not where he’d expected the conversation to go and he wasn’t sure if he’d truly allowed himself to acknowledge his feelings for Sera until this moment.

“Are you all right?” she asked. “Your face looks . . . strange.”

“Does it?” His voice sounded unnaturally high. “No, I’m fine, I’m . . .” He searched for a change of subject, but Sera found one for him.

“Oh,” she said, and her hand flew to her necklace.

“The moonstone?” Leo asked.

She nodded. “It just went cold.”