Having completed her collections outside of Zalindov’s walls, Kiva’s attention switched to inside the prison.

On Friday, nearly a week after her fire Ordeal, Kiva headed to the luminium depository, a large rectangular building in the south of the grounds, just inside the gates. She didn’t need Naari escorting her anymore, since she was within the grounds, but the guard still accompanied her to the storage facility and the adjacent processing factory. Kiva wasn’t sure if Naari was curious about the research or if she simply wanted to keep spending time with her. Once or twice, Kiva had inwardly questioned the guard’s motives, even going so far as to wonder if she was somehow aligned with the rebels, watching over Kiva for the sake of Tilda. Another possibility Kiva entertained was whether Rooke had assigned Naari to protect her—or to spy on her. But neither option sat right with Kiva, and with little evidence for either, she decided she was better off not worrying about whether Naari was going to stab her in the back, metaphorically speaking. Perhaps literally speaking, too.

There was, however, one burning question Kiva still had about the guard, and that was regarding her relationship with Jaren. Even though Naari had firmly stated that she would never cross that line, Kiva still had doubts, especially when she discovered that Naari was tasked with monitoring the tunnelers anytime she wasn’t guarding the infirmary, and therefore she saw Jaren a lot more than either of them had let on. Try as she might, Kiva remained suspicious of the easy, relaxed way in which they interacted. While she wasn’t one to objectify the human body, Kiva had seen Jaren without his tunic on. She’d felt his arms around her, his lips touching her forehead, his hands entwined with hers. Hell, she’d slept wrapped in him, his warmth and strength surrounding her all night, keeping her safe and protected in her own Jaren cocoon.

The memories brought warmth to Kiva’s cheeks, and she scolded herself for being so ridiculous. If Naari had lied about being intimate with Jaren, then that was between the two of them. Kiva didn’t care. She didn’t.

She did, however, become very good at lying to herself.

The samples from the luminium depository were cleared after testing the rats the next day, and Kiva’s concern grew as the list of places left to check continued to shrink.

“Don’t worry ’bout it, luv,” Mot told her on Saturday night when he and his morgue workers came to collect another load of the dead. “Yeh’ll figure it out. Yeh always do. Just like yer da.”