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“Especially then.”

I kiss her, slowly enough to make her forget the people around us. When I draw back, she keeps hold of my arm.

“Come to my room tonight,” I say.

The leaves at my temples fold back before she answers. She is already on her feet.

VAI

We make it as far as the first empty passage before I stop him. He has waited for me to ask for every single thing, and tonight he didn’t wait.

Daurek turns, and I catch his arm and pull him down to me. He braces one hand against the wall above my head. The other settles at my waist, drawing me onto my toes as he kisses me.

I have wanted this since he lost the step because he was looking at my face. Perhaps before that. It became difficult to count while he was turning me beneath his arm.

“We can keep going,” I say.

“Along the passage?”

“For now.”

He takes my hand again. This time I keep pace beside him, though he has shortened his stride enough that I know what it costs him.

His room is beyond the northern passage, quiet now that the day’s visitors have gone. Fresh leaves have begun to frame his face again, leaving the seams beside his mouth clear. He opens the door and waits for me to step inside.

The bed is broad and low, with a dark woven blanket folded at its foot. A reading ledge curves beneath a lamp of pale fungi. There are two cups beside a water pitcher, a book left open, and a smooth hollow in the moss where he must sit to read.

I try to picture him here on the nights he kissed me at my door and went away. It is easier to imagine the size of him in the bed than the moment he would lie down and turn toward the empty room.

I look back at him.

“Which side do you sleep on?”

“Usually, the one nearest the door.”

“I’ll take the other.”

His face changes. He puts down the latch slowly, as if he wants to make this moment last.

“You may take whichever you like.”

I cross to the bed and sit. My feet hurt from dancing. I want to do it again tomorrow. I unlace my boots, pull off my stockings and leave both beside the bed. The floor is warm beneath my toes.

Daurek watches me take the pins from my pocket. I put them on the little ledge at the far side of the bed.

“For the morning,” I tell him.

“I know.”

“You’re looking at them.”

“I like them there.”

I rise and go to him. There is room between the bed and the reading ledge for a few small steps. I put one hand on his arm and offer him the other.

“Dance with me again.”

“We’ve left the music downstairs.”