“Wait.”
Astrid paused.
When she turned, the light from the window cut sharp across her cheeks. Stark down the pale skin of her chest. Silver moonlight and aurora, tangling in dark hair and dark antlers.
“Why are we doing this?” Fi pleaded. “It’s beenyears, Astrid. It’s… good to see you.”
Every line of her face was a memory, the clamp of her jaw as stubborn as she’d always been. So unyielding.
So beautiful.
“Is it?” Astrid said.
“Of course.” By the endless Void, there were too many things Fi wanted to say. Needed to say. Nowhere to start. “I wasn’t sure you’d come. I didn’t know… if you’d want to see me again.”
It felt like an eternity, the time Astrid weighed that statement.
“I had to see you,” Astrid said, ice flat. “I had to know if anything has changed.”
“Has it?”
They’d both changed. Fi had to believe that. She wasn’t the frightened, flimsy girl who’d run away from home a decade ago.She’d been hardened by work, honed on Shards, steadied into someone who could finally face an old friend.
So whythe fuckdid her legs still threaten to give out when Astrid stepped closer? Why did her heart try to crack through her chest as Astrid raised a hand to Fi’s temple, brushing aside a rainbow curl with those long, cool fingers?
“The hair is new,” Astrid murmured.
That quickly, they were standing too close. As close as they used to be.
Fi moved to kiss her like an old instinct, a muscle trained and worn and never forgotten. Astrid stiffened, every line of her as hard as the glares she’d been shooting since the lobby. Then, she softened. Astrid cupped Fi’s cheeks and returned a bruising kiss, ending with a bite to the lip that made Fi gasp. She tasted different, smelled different, the homemade honey lip balm and pine resin of their childhood replaced by satin lipstick and a tang of metal.
Fi’s heart hammered harder. This was the worst idea she’d ever had. She needed it like air in her lungs. She kissed Astrid fiercer, clawed her fingers into Astrid’s silken shirt, pulling her toward the bed.
Astrid pulled away.
The motion hit sharp as a recoil. She held Fi at arm’s length—eyes harder than before, mouth clamped and unreadable.
“An enticing invitation,” Astrid said. “But I have other work to do.”
That was what had changed.
The words stung with finality. A distance Fi didn’t know how to cross. For one horrifying moment, she wondered if they were finally going to talk about what happened between them.
“I… understand,” Fi said instead. Immediately, she knew it was wrong, watched Astrid’s eyes darken to scuffed ruby.
“Good luck tomorrow,” Astrid said.
The hitch in her voice was nearly undetectable, as she released Fi. Back to that unruffled posture, as she stepped into the hall.
When the door closed, Fi slid the deadbolt into place with a chest-splittingslank.
Ten years had been long enough to assume Astrid hadn’t forgiven her. To mull the possibility of reunion on nights when Fi found herself staring at the dark rafters of her cottage, haunted by the things she’d said that day. By the things she hadn’t.
But she was different now. She told herself she was stronger than ten years ago, even as she curled into an unfamiliar bed, huddled beneath a blanket thick with laundry starch. Deep in her gut, survival instinct nagged Fi to cut her losses and run, flee this city and whatever strange business she’d been contracted for.
But she knew with equal certainty: she had to stay. Fi had to see things through this time.
She owed Astrid that much.
