‘You said. You said before, about what happened. How we’d … try again … the day before we died.’

Her eyes narrowed. ‘Have you come looking for sex?’

He found he couldn’t answer. No combination of words seemed right.

She took a long breath and swung the door open the rest of the way.

‘You’d better come in.’

***

The lamps in the room were low, but even by their gentle light he could see she’d been busy. A knapsack, bedroll, and several satchels lay on the bed, some of Foss and Lemon’s pilfered fruit poking from within. She’d laid out clothes, hard travelling wear, along with some of the richer gear the Sericans had provided for them. Nestled among them was Ruumi’s fat blue stone, peeking from a leather pouch, its delicate facets twinkling in the light.

She poured him a cup of water from a pitcher and nodded toward the chair in the room’s corner. He sat, heart fluttering in his chest, still uncertain of what might happen.

‘Did you know Lemon’s real name was Lennon?’

She raised an eyebrow but said nothing, concentrating only on bundling the clothing to fit in a pair of conjoined sacks. At last he recognized them as saddlebags.

‘So, when you said—’

‘If you’re about to ask if we’re going to fuck, then no, cub, no we are not. Just sit there, drink water and be quiet for a while, will you? Shepherd knows you stink of booze.’

Inside him, something crumbled, perhaps hope. His eyes fell on the bed, forbidden territory, and the ordered effects that lay on it. His mind caught up.

‘You’re packing? You’re leaving?’

She looked up at him, her mouth a thin line.

‘Yes.’

‘Why?’

Her eyes widened, perhaps in anger, perhaps amazement. ‘More reasons than you could name.’

‘You’re leaving us?’

‘You could come too.’

‘But … But the—’

‘Yes, exactly. Now hush. Drink the water.’

He drank the water. She packaged up the clothes, then paused, and at last shrugged off her shirt, bundling it and stuffing it in with the others. Beneath she wore only the strapping he remembered from Wavecrest, from tending her wound after her sparring with Dalim. He looked for a mark, a narrow scar below her chest, and as she turned in the amber lamplight he saw at last what had been escaping him for weeks.

‘You’re …’ He swallowed, throat dry, swigged water. ‘You’re …’

She gazed at him, level and unhurried, making no move to hide or cover her thickening abdomen.

‘Yes.’

‘A b … baby?’

‘Yes.’

‘I thought … you couldn’t?’

‘So did I. Apparently God has a sense of humour after all.’

‘Is this why you’re leaving?’

‘Nothing I said before is any less true for this.’

‘Does Rennic know?’

‘Why would he care?’

‘It’s not his?’

‘She is mine.’

Chel nodded slowly and sipped water, ill-equipped to cope. ‘Does he know you’re leaving?’