“If it takes more than an hour, I’m leaving. With or without you.”
Milana and Erik exchanged a wary look.
“Agreed,” Astrid said for them.
Fi swallowed approximately a hundred questions splitting her tongue. A hundred curses, bottled into a glare. Astrid reciprocated, fingers light on the arms of her chair, face like granite.
Then, subtle enough for only Fi to see: a smirk that raked a chill down her neck.
After settling Aisinay into a Shard outside the city, Fi retreated to the hotel room her hosts insisted on paying for. She sprawled onto a down comforter, watching the glint of green aurora against window glass.
She wasn’t sure when to expect a knock on her door.
But the knock did come.
When Fi answered, Astrid stood in the hall. The vavriter reclined against gold and teal wallpaper, armed with a smirk and sinfully tight pants, that silken shirt cut assaulting low down her pale chest. Her hair and antlers were black as Void. Her eyes, glinting like faceted rubies in the sconce lights.
“I hoped we might discuss your job,” Astrid said. “If the esteemed smuggler can spare a moment for me?”
She spoke so light. So easy. Fi opened her mouth to say something very rude. And veryloud. Guaranteed to upset the neighbors.
Instead, she barely mustered a whisper.
“It’s been ten years, Astrid.”
The smirk faltered, if only for a heartbeat. “Time flies, doesn’t it?”
Fi stared, as if this haunting visitor might disappear the moment she blinked. A familiar figment of her imagination. Astrid stared back.
“Are you going to invite me in?” Astrid said, low like a taunt.
Slamming the door in her face would be considered rude. Damn manners to the pit of the Void, Fi wasn’t ready for this—far too sober, for starters.
She huffed and beckoned Astrid inside.
While Fi sat stiffly on the edge of the bed, the vavriter pacedthe room. That curtain of black hair veiled half her face, slender brows tilted to appraise the flowery wall moldings. A ghost. A Void-damned ghost, strutting in front of her.
“You look… well,” Fi managed, just to break the silence.
Astrid stopped pacing. Ruby-red eyes stared at Fi a moment too long. Too hard.
“Do I?” Astrid said lowly.
Her smirk snapped back, dagger sharp.
“Of course, I lookfabulous.” Astrid spread her arms, posture unnervingly easy. “You don’t look so awful yourself. For a Void smuggler.”
“You’ve been keeping tabs on me?”
“You thought I wouldn’t?”
Fi’s knuckles clenched. “Then what was that act downstairs?”
“Being careful.” Astrid spoke as if this were a disappointing question. How was she so damncalm? “I assumed you wouldn’t want people knowing your personal life.”
She leaned against a dresser, sure and willowy. She’d always been willowy. And wild, Fi’s father had called her. A forest beast, as likely to snap as to purr.
Astrid’s family had moved to their childhood town to oversee the energy factory. Vavriter were uncommon visitors on the Season-Locked Planes, almost only as administrative hands for daeyari, their human neighbors inclined to keep cautious distance from anything with antlers. Fi’s father warned her to do the same—but she’d been old enough by then; any word from that selfish old man sent her sprinting in the other direction, even straight into fire.
