Page 135 of Reaper Said Mine

Ursa walks beside me with her hair coming loose from its knot, her cheek faintly flushed, and her mouth carefully composed in a way that tells me she is fighting a smile. Her sealed cut is hidden beneath a narrow medical patch, but I still see it. I see the pulse shot crossing the chamber, her body hitting the floor, blood at her temple, her voice telling me not to give our enemies the reaction they bought. Every part of me wants to put her behind the thickest door on the station and stand outside it with every weapon I own.

Every part of me knows she would pick the lock out of spite.

A pair of Reaper mechanics pretend not to see us coming, which would be more convincing if one had not elbowed the other hard enough to drop a coil wrench.

Ursa glances at them. “Subtle.”

“My people value honesty.”

“They are staring at us in reflections.”

“They also value survival.”

A human child darts across the walkway, stops when she sees me, then looks at Ursa with enormous eyes. Her mother hurries after her, breathless and embarrassed.

“Sorry, lord,” the woman says, scooping the child close. “She knows better than to run through the west bridge.”

The girl points at Ursa. “Is she really yours?”

The mother makes a sound like she has swallowed a fusion block. “Mina!”

Ursa’s eyebrows rise.

I crouch until I am closer to the child’s height, though even crouched I remain larger than most nightmares she has been told about. “She is not a ration packet or a wrench, little one. People are not owned.”

Mina considers this gravely. “Narra said you carried her.”

“Narra says many things.”

“Narra said you looked like you were going to bite the whole feast.”

Ursa makes a small choking sound beside me.

The mother’s face turns red. “I am so sorry.”

I look at the child. “Narra exaggerates.”

Mina squints at me. “Do you love her?”

The corridor becomes very interested in this question. Every passing adult slows by one unnecessary degree. The mechanics stop pretending to repair anything. A laundry line above us creaks as someone behind it ceases all movement.

Ursa’s breath catches.

I stand slowly, not because I do not know the answer, but because the answer in this place has consequences. To Reapers, a jalshagar bond is not gossip. It is hunger, oath, madness, mercy, and fate tangled into one word. To diplomats, it is leverage. To enemies, it is coordinates.

I look down at Ursa, and her green eyes hold mine with a warning and a question braided together.

Then I look back at Mina. “Yes.”

Ursa goes still.

The corridor inhales around us.

Mina nods as if this confirms a theory of great importance. “Good. She got hurt yesterday.”

“Yes,” I say, voice rougher. “She did.”

“You should make the walls stop doing that.”