I set the mocha down on the dining table, closing my MacFold; the thirty-two-inch laptop neatly folded itself into quarters. I still couldn’t get enough of that trick. It made my old MacPlus look like something dredged up from an archaeological dig. I picked up the laptop, now just eight inches long and half an inch thick, and set it on the marble kitchen counter. “Sit.”

She reached the table in a few purposeful strides, and I couldn’t help staring at the long lines of her body, the litheness with which her hips swayed. Sitting down on the dining chair, she raised the large mug to me when I joined her. “Happy New Year,” she said before taking a sip. “This is delicious.”

Daiyu cradled the cup and took in her surroundings as unabashedly as she had stared at my bare chest. As if she owned all of it. An absolutely proprietary glance, one that I had never seen from a mei before—a confidence I had never felt but now must feign. It was too easy for me to forget that Daiyu was a you girl when not in her suit. She exuded a confidence coupled with a genuineness I was drawn to. But if anyone was the epitome of all that the yous stood for, it would be the daughter of Jin.

I could never forget that.

“Nice place,” she said, her gaze returning to the dramatic views of Taipei below.

Taipei was a city located within a basin, surrounded by mountains. This meant that the pollution was especially bad here, more easily trapped. The thick haze that hung over our city was a daily sight, unless storm clouds blew through to drench us in acid rain. I’d never seen the mountains that I knew were in the far distance in my three weeks of living in this apartment, a view that I knew existed from my research on the undernet of the 101 building.

“The view’s the best part,” I said.

She nodded, then took another sip of mocha, before turning her face toward me. “It is. Except for the brown haze that sits over us.” She pointed into the distance, and then, as if she could read my mind, said, “There are mountains out there. But I’ve never seen a mountain before in my entire life.”

“Ah.” I swallowed, afraid of what I might say by accident. I remembered the conversations we had before, when I was her kidnapper. But she recalled none of it. The weight of this, beyond the fear of her possibly remembering, was disconcerting. Talking to her made me feel lopsided, askew. “But during your travels—”