Page 115

Jade went still for one full second, the kind of stillness I'd learned to recognize as her body deciding whether contact meant threat before her mind caught up and told it otherwise. Then her shoulders dropped, the fight draining out of them, and she huffed something that in anyone else would've been a laugh.

"Fine."

He let go immediately, stepping back with both hands raised, all business until the moment his grip left her, when the grin finally came back like he'd been holding it in reserve the whole match.

"Close, though. Closer than most people manage against me."

Applause came from the wall, loudly from Elira, Taren laughing and called out something about buying the next round of drinks off whoever'd bet against her. Corian's mouth had curved into something that wasn't quite a smile but wasn't far off either. Nykos looked, for him, almost pleased, which mostly showed in the fact that his scowl had dropped by half.

Jade rolled her shoulder, testing it, and looked at Dax with an expression I hadn't seen her wear before. Not suspicion. Not the careful blank mask she kept for strangers. Something closer to respect, given honestly, the way she gave most things.

"You used the same setup twice."

"Did I."

"The low feint before the duplication. Both times."

Dax's grin faltered, just slightly, into something more genuine. "Nobody's caught that before."

"I'm telling you so you fix it. Not so you feel good about it."

"That's the least flattering compliment I've ever gotten."

"You'll live."

He laughed and clapped her once on the shoulder, and Ashter's head came up sharp against my hand, ember eyes fixed on the hand now touching her. Jade flinched at the contact before she let it land. Small flinch. Recovered fast.

I caught it anyway. I usually did. Filed it next to the dozen other small things I'd learned to notice and never mention, because noticing wasn't the same as having any right to do something about it.

"Feedback like that, I might actually keep you around."

"Wasn't aware that was your decision."

"It isn't. Doesn't stop me hoping."

The sun had shifted while they fought, dropping low enough behind the wall that the yard had gone gold at the edges, and my stomach reminded me loudly that breakfast had happened a very long time ago. Taren must have felt the same shift, because he was already on his feet, declaring with the confidence of a man who'd made this decision before anyone else in the yard had finished catching their breath.

"You're cooking tonight."

"We weren't planning on cooking tonight," Corian said.

"You are now. I've got half a hog in my cold store doing nothing and seven people here who look hungry enough to eat the fence."

Nobody argued. Halver disappeared toward the shed for the grill without being asked twice, and within ten minutes there was a fire going in the pit near the wall and Taren directing traffic like he owned both yards, which by every practical measure he mostly did. Someone produced a jug of something dark and strong enough that Kellan made a face after his first mouthful and immediately went back for more. Elira pulled Nykos into an argument about a card game none of us had played in months, purely, I suspected, because arguing with Nykos was one of her favorite hobbies.

I found myself a spot near the fire and a mug I didn't remember being handed, and watched Jade sit on the low wall a few feet from the noise instead of in the center of it. Not far enough to be alone. Close enough to still be part of it.

Her hair had come fully loose from the braid at some point during the fight and she hadn't bothered fixing it, dark strands catching gold from the firelight, one still stuck to her jaw where sweat had dried. She had a scrape along one forearm she hadn't mentioned to anyone, already healing faster than it should have, the skin knitting closed in real time if a person knew where to look.

I knew where to look.

I'd been looking for longer than I wanted to admit out loud.

Dax dropped onto the wall beside her without asking, because asking wasn't a thing Dax did with anyone he'd decided he liked, and said something I couldn't hear over the fire that made her actually laugh, the real one, escape before she caught it. Not loud. Just real. The kind she still rationed out like she thought there was a limited supply somewhere and she didn't want to run out.

I wanted to be the one who got that laugh out of her more often than anyone else did.

That thought arrived plain and uncomplicated, no permission requested, and I let it sit there because pretending I hadn't thought it seemed like a worse use of my time.