‘Your news,’ he signed when he could be sure he wouldn’t cry. She protested, he insisted, and eventually she related everything that had happened since he’d been gone. It made as little sense this time around as when Apok had told him, but he could see the evidence stacking up against Ilandeh and Dakto both and in the end he had to concede that what everyone else thought was likely the truth. In light of everything that had happened, and even on top of the monstrous weight of fear and pain at Lilla having been ripped from him, he found their betrayal cut deep and wondered, for a single selfish, wallowing instant, whether he had the strength to carry this extra load.

And then he told himself to stop being a mewling little pup and help his friend.

‘Haven’t told me everything though,’ he signed at the end and pointed to Toxte. ‘What’s the pretty little ornament doing here?’

The corner of Toxte’s mouth turned up, and then again when Xessa blushed. ‘Like you said, he’s pretty. He amuses me,’ she signed with studied nonchalance, but Tayan well knew the mischief dancing across her face and it lifted his heart to see.

‘Amuse?’ Toxte demanded in mock outrage. ‘I’m the best thing that’s ever happened to you and you know it. You save my life, I save yours, we have great sex. Regularly,’ he added and waggled his eyebrows.

Xessa huffed a laugh but then she kissed him, a lingering kiss that had Tayan clearing his throat and fussing with the dogs until they were done. ‘You are the best thing,’ she signed simply and they smiled at each other until Tayan made dramatic vomiting motions and she threw a cushion at him.

The rest of the night passed with too much beer and too many tears until Tayan couldn’t stay awake any longer. He desperately wanted to sleep on Xessa’s floor, or even curled with her in bed as they’d done countless times before. The thought of returning to his and Lilla’s empty house terrified him, but Xessa and Toxte were making eyes at each other and he couldn’t intrude any longer. With luck, he’d have drunk enough to sleep.

Lilla had, of course, left their home clean and tidy, and Xessa had given him water and candles, though he didn’t – couldn’t – light them. Instead, Tayan kicked off his sandals before stepping onto the mats, and then stripped out of his travel-worn clothes, scrubbed his face and neck and armpits with water and fell into their bed. It smelt like Lilla, and Tayan cried.