I rip into my sticky roll.
“You should dump him,” says Rivets.
“I’d have to get the chance first.”
“Want me to track him down?” She lays a forearm on the table and leans in, wags blonde eyebrows. “I’ve got connections.”
“I’d rather kill him myself.”
“Just saying, if you ever need a fighter convoy, I’ll bring a House-worth of wings to bear.”
My eyebrows rise. “Well, I have a magical amulet that can power down a whole House on a whim, so I think I’m covered.”
“In that case, you should join my unit. I could use a good amulet bearer.” Her grin upends her face, light and happy and very young. Infectious and almost catching.
But I remain deadpan, bowing over my plate. “Say the word, and I will clutch my heart and call down curses from afar.”
“So it was the heart. I wondered,” says a soft voice at my elbow. My head snaps round.
Niles.
Dressed for the weather in a long gray jacket that hits his thighs and a pale white scarf. Hair flustered, hands in pockets, dark eyes as upended as Rivets’s smile.
“Makes for a pretty potent amulet,” he says.
“Niles,” I say. It hangs, suspended.
I’m suspended. The world breathless in an eye of calm.
“Kit.” The perfect balance of K and T.
Somewhere, hurricanes wail.
“Seems like I need another coffee.” Rivets’s chair scrapes back and she stands, careful. Takes her plate. “Yell if you need a convoy.”
“All right,” I half whisper. Maybe it’s just in my head.
Niles holds out his hand as she rounds the table. “I’m Niles, by the way.”
Her face warms, letters tripping off her tongue. “W—Suzanna.”
A quick shake, then she disappears through the walkway gate.
It’s just Niles.
And me.
“You came,” I say.
“I thought that was the idea.”
“Took you long enough.”
He moves, hand grasping my chair back as he bends to glare from two inches away. “The sticky roll of our divinity? Could you be any more obscure? You know how many divinity shops are in this damn city? And what the hell is up with all these trees?”
His breath warms the chill air, the frosted edges of my mouth. I don’t know how he sees through all those bangs.
“Is Niles even your name?” I ask.
“Yes,” he says. “Now.”
“And it’s just that easy?”
His teeth catch the edge of his lip. I could totally do that for him.
“No,” he says. “The House is a wreck, there’s no power except on the Brink, and Dad figured out what I’d done—which could have gone very badly, if the city hadn’t gone mad and swarmed our complex to claim his head.”
“You all right?” I ask.
“I’m here, aren’t I?” he says.
“That’s good,” I say.
The silences bends, tightens. Neither of us move.
His eyes squeeze close. “Do you want me here, Kit? Did I read that wrong?”
“Depends,” I say.
His eyes snap open, intent with possibility, a wave I won’t survive.
I don’t know that I want to.
“Is this a game” I ask. “Or will it mean something this time?”
“Are you crazy?” He cups my face in his palms. “I just burned every bridge I had for you. It meant something every time,” he says, and kisses me.
Words can’t express the dead space between isolation and having one ally. Four may be
twice two, but two is not twice one. Two is
two thousand times one.
—Scholar Gilken