He pressed his mouth into a line, and then: ::Will it make you more comfortable?::

“I would be worried about you sleeping on the hard floor.” I pried off the robe—and therefore LaLa—and placed them on the bottom corner of the bed. She wiggled deeper into the fabric until she sat in it like a bird in a nest.

::When I was young,:: Aaru tapped, ::I slept on the floor all the time. Before I built a bed in the basement.::

My chest felt heavy with pressure. “Sleep in the bed.” Before he could respond, I hurried into the washroom to wash my face and change clothes, careful to put the gown into its protective bag. By the time I came back, LaLa was asleep and Aaru had covered all but one of the noorestones. He stood awkwardly on the opposite side of the bed, wearing soft trousers and a long buttoned shirt. He looked . . . cozy. He’d looked incredible earlier, yes, but clad only in his loose nightclothes he was Aaru, but even softer. I couldn’t decide whether to hate or thank Ilina for doing this.

“Have you . . .” He shifted his weight. It was difficult to avoid acknowledging the reason Ilina and the others had moved our rooms around, but clearly he intended to make an attempt. He switched to quiet code, just quick tapping against the headboard. ::Have you still been having those dreams?::

I nearly sagged in relief, then tried to cover it by sitting on my side of the bed, on top of the covers, pretending like I was completely fine. Like my heart wasn’t thrumming. Like we weren’t avoiding anything. Like this was a normal conversation. “Yes. Every night.”

He sat, too, a mirror of me. “Will you tell me?”

“It’s hard to explain.” But if I didn’t try, we’d be forced to confront the sleeping situation. The bed situation. We’d slept close together before, but on different sides of the wall between our cells, or in separate hammocks. Nothing like a nice bed in a beautiful hotel after attending a ball together.

His voice gentled even more. “Do you want to go to sleep?”

I wanted to talk to him. It had been so long, and I didn’t want it to end, but . . . I got up and covered the last noorestone. When I came back to the bed, he was already between the covers. I slipped in, too, careful of my feet around LaLa’s nest, and faced Aaru. “Can I have your hand?” I whispered into the darkness.

He shifted—I didn’t hear it, but I could feel his movements—and a moment later his fingers touched mine.

::There are lots of different dreams. In the ones with the empire, I see bones. Great dragon bones so big I—:: I sighed and drew his hand closer to me. ::I’ve never seen anything like it, but in my dream, I know they’re the bones of the first dragon.::

::The first?::