The house feed showed Smistria and Frill lounging in the bathing pool. Miskisk, singlebodied, was awkwardly saying goodbye to Squell in the anteroom, holding vir overnight bag. Thurm and Grobbard had no public locations listed; Nupolo and Pip and Frill had bodies walking through public spaces—but they, too, showed no reaction. But then, why would they react? Pip was busy with Pom Politigus; and to zir other parents, unless they explicitly queried zir agents, this wouldn’t look any different than if Fift was visiting any private home . . .

Fift’s heart hammered there in Shria’s secret room—and zir other hearts sped up, too, fast enough to wake zir sleeping body.

For a moment ze didn’t know if it was terror or excitement. But Shria hadn’t said We could do anything—of course not. Ve’d said, We could talk about anything.

(Fift was now awake in zir bed. Arms and legs splayed among pillowcloths, zir skin hot. Ze shivered anyway, rolled over, kept zir eyes squeezed shut.)

“Wow,” Fift said. “Okay then, um, what . . . should we talk about?”

In vir standing body, Shria put vir hands together, cracked vir knuckles. “Well, um, we could . . .” It seemed to Fift that ve was on the verge of saying something specific, but lost vir nerve. “Want to see my new genitals?” ve said brightly.

Fift almost choked. “Your—new—”

Shria slid off the table, lifting vir hands, and said, in that body, “Yeah! You were asking about the Cirque design? These are sort of . . . well, not exactly related, but ‘inspired by,’ let’s say? I just had them done. I’m really proud of them, and I haven’t gotten to show them off much! My parents don’t care, and it’s not like I can show them to other Vails, because, you know”—ve raised vir eyebrows—“that would be kind of forward? If I show them to another Vail, it means we’re going to, ah, employ them . . .” Ve grinned. “But no danger of that with you, so . . .”

“Ah,” Fift said, “but what about those, um, transactions I was supposed to look at . . . ?”

Shria stopped, shrugged. Vir hands fell back to vir sides. “Oh, well . . . okay, sure, of course—”

“I mean,” Fift said, “just to get them out of the way. You know, because . . . they will ask; at least, Pip is going to—”

“Sure,” Shria said, sending the transactions.

Fift closed zir eyes and scrolled through the history; the transactions were well-organized, and most of the accounting was done already, with highlights clearly marking where zir professional attention was required to specify the exact outcome.

“Here,” Shria said, poking zir with a thin, translucent folding screen. “Here’s a physical instantiation. So you can at least look at me while you do that.”