Or maybe Rebecca and her corporal had kissed and made up, and Han was on the outs again.

Han wasn’t a fool, but he would have said the kisses he and Rebecca shared had been honest. And Rebecca didn’t seem like the type to ditch him without an explanation.

And what about the Cadets’ Ball? Should he assume it was on until he heard otherwise?

Finally, he left a note on the table and clumped back down the stairs. Linc looked up sympathetically. “Trouble?”

Han shrugged. “I don’t know.”

He thought about walking over to Grindell but didn’t want to cause more trouble for Rebecca. Or show up where he wasn’t wanted.

So he walked back to Hampton, nodding to Blevins in the common room and mounting the stairs. He hoped Dancer was home. He’d stayed out all night the night before, which wasn’t unusual. Sometimes he slept at Firesmith’s forge when he was trying to finish a project. Han hadn’t even told him what had happened in Aediion.

When Han arrived on the fourth floor, precious stones and metal findings littered the tabletop, and the cup of tea next to them was still warm, but Dancer was nowhere in sight. Clearly he’d been there, working, not long ago.

In fact, there were two cups.

Dancer’s door was closed. “Hey! Dancer?” Han tried his door, and it was latched from the inside.

“Don’t come in,” Dancer said. Han heard shuffling and rustling on the other side of the door.

“Well, I can’t very well, since it’s latched,” Han said. “Are you in bed this early?”

He heard muffled whispering inside, and yanked his hand back from the door. “Sorry!” he said, backing away. “Ah…sorry.”

He hadn’t even known Dancer was walking out with anyone, but then he pretty much kept such matters to himself.

Han sat down at his work desk and halfheartedly leafed through his Faulk. He supposed he could study on his own, but it wouldn’t be the same. He put the book aside and pulled out his notes from Gryphon’s class. He had an exam the next day, but his thoughts kept turning to Rebecca.

After a few minutes, Dancer’s door opened and he poked his head out. “I thought this was your tutoring night,” he said. “You’re back early.”

“Rebecca didn’t show,” Han said, shrugging. “Maybe because of that incident at her dormitory on Tuesday with Commander Byrne.”

Dancer leaned on the door frame. “Hmmm.”

“You going to introduce me?” Han said, nodding toward the doorway.

Dancer looked over his shoulder into his room. “Do you want to be introduced?” he asked.

A moment later, the girlie poked her head out.

It was Cat.

“Oh,” Han said. “So. When were you going to tell me?”

“It’s pretty new,” Dancer said. “We wanted to wait and see if it was working out.”