Episode Six

Even inside the house, my heart wouldn’t settle. I was lying there staring vaguely at the ceiling when the door finally opened with a soft sound.

“Good — you’re still awake.”

“You told me not to sleep.”

I glanced at her chest as she came in, hair down, changed into her house clothes, and couldn’t help saying something.

“You’re wearing it to bed?”

“Of course. Don’t take yours off either.”

She picked up the pendant from the desk as she said it, and settled beside me.

I pushed myself upright and offered her my neck. The pendant came to rest against my chest again, and through her fingers where they touched my skin I felt the warmth of her.

“Are you going to sleep now?”

Something awkward between us made me ask it, quietly, as I lay back down.

“Yes. I’ll turn the light out.”

She let the mana she’d been feeding the lamp go, and the room folded into dark. Moonlight through the window left just enough to see by, a faint silver over everything.

Not wanting her to see my face unguarded, I turned my back to her and pressed myself toward the edge of the bed. A single bed for two people — lying side by side, it was cramped.

“Sion.”

“Yes?”

In the dark, Selene opened her mouth quietly. Something in the whisper of it made my body go slightly tense.

“Thank you for today. I had a wonderful time.”

Words more honest than she usually allowed herself. And yet somehow they fit her exactly.

“So did I.”

To hide the nerves, I said it simply and closed my eyes. Better to sleep early tonight, I thought.

After that she said nothing, and the quiet of the dark room settled around us. I felt sleepy, and yet the presence at my back kept me from settling.

Was Selene already asleep? She usually dropped off without trouble — she might not be thinking about me at all.

I reached up and touched the pendant at my chest, and let today come back to me.

A whole day spent as though it were a date, and by the end I felt like I’d gotten a little closer to her than before. Not the White Witch, not the silent person she was at home — if the Selene she’d shown me today was her real self, I hoped it was. I hoped that was who she really was.

How do I make her show me that side of herself all the time? I want to know more about her.

I was turning that over in my mind when the hem of my clothes was tugged, gently, and I came back to the room.

“What is it?”

I shifted to look at her face, and in that same moment a voice like something half-imagined reached my ear, and my whole body went still.

“I want to kiss you.”

What?

Kiss. A kiss. I turned the word over to see if it had some other meaning I was missing, but nothing came.

“What are you saying. Don’t say strange things.”

I forced the words through my trembling throat, still with my back to her.

“Sion. Is that a no?”

The grip on my hem tightened. It wasn’t like the supply, not that air of holding something over me.

“Of course it’s a no. That’s not something you do for fun.”

“It isn’t for fun.”

She pressed close against my back and let the words fall near my ear. The clear sound of her voice moved through my whole body, kindling heat in it.

The same feeling as the night after the settlement. That night too, she had clung to my back in a voice barely there.

“I, no. We need to sleep. We have jobs again from tomorrow, don’t we.”

I pressed my eyes shut and tried to slow my breathing. The sounds in the room — I couldn’t tell which were mine and which were hers.

The hand that had been holding my hem moved, and stroked my back softly. The ticklish sensation made me fold inward.

“Strange things are banned.”

“Then how far is all right?”

If she was going to say something like that, I wished she’d say it with her usual teasing edge. In her voice right now, I couldn’t refuse her.

“Not anywhere. Just sleeping.”

I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to let consciousness go.

I shouldn’t indulge her. Without the supply as a reason, what was allowed between us was sleeping side by side, nothing more.

“Just for tonight. What if I said — when we wake up tomorrow, we can forget all of it?”

The sweet sound of it blocked every way out. My body was hot, my breathing growing difficult.

“No. No.”

I have to sleep. If I sleep, I won’t have to think about any of this.

“Please.”

The pleading in her voice came at the same moment something warm and soft traced slowly across my lips. From one corner to the other, unhurried. Warm and soft.

When my lips parted on instinct, her slender fingers slipped inside my mouth. The tip of my tongue moved away on reflex, and was caught between them, touched as lightly as if being held.

Saliva spilled from the corner of my mouth and soaked into the sheets. Slowly, I was seeping into Selene’s bed.

I couldn’t think anymore. My vision and everything inside my head had gone soft and hazy, as though mist had settled over them.

“Are you angry?”

She drew her fingers gently from my mouth and whispered it.

“I don’t know. Idiot.”

“Are you frightened?”

Her hand moved softly through my hair. Maybe I liked having my hair touched. Even through all of this, the corners of my mouth were threatening to loosen.

“No.”

“Tell me if anything is too much.”

The next moment, a hand rested on my shoulder and turned me, gently, toward her.

In the dark, I found Selene’s face, her breathing shallow, her eyes meeting mine. A flushed expression I had never seen on her before. Looking at it, something deep inside my chest was touched, in a place nothing had ever reached.

I should sleep. Even as I thought it, I couldn’t look away from those golden eyes.

Only our breathing moved through the space between us, passing back and forth.

I was held in her gaze and couldn’t move, and then her face came close, close enough that our noses were almost touching.

I didn’t know what expression she was wearing right now. She was right there, and our eyes hadn’t looked away, and yet my mind had gone entirely white and I understood nothing.

Her breathing, the soft friction of our nightclothes — everything was too loud to think through.

If she came any closer, I would probably let her.

The moment I thought it, something sharp and strong moved through my whole body. The bed creaked beneath me. My vision flickered. Even breathing with my shoulders didn’t bring the air in.

“Sion?”

The uncertain, stricken voice, I ignored it. I focused entirely on finding my breath again. Through the sound of it I could hear something hoarse and scraped that didn’t sound like mine, and it made me feel wretched.

I kept at it for a while, but my breathing wouldn’t come calm. The nightclothes clinging to me with sweat felt awful against my skin.

Finally I released the sheets I’d been gripping until my fingers went white, and opened my mouth.

“Let’s just sleep.”

A small pause.

“I’m not angry. This was on both of us. Forget all of it.”

I murmured it and closed my eyes. I was afraid to look at Selene’s face right now, and couldn’t open them. I should have turned my back to her, but my body wouldn’t move anymore.

After a moment, arms came around me — tentative, almost frightened. At a time like this, I wished she would just hold me properly.

She broke her promise and did something she shouldn’t have. I could push her away right now and go back to my own room.

Before, I’d accepted the supply because I had no choice. Unpleasant as it was, I’d told myself it was necessary.

Then what had this been? Time that had nothing to do with the supply, just the two of us.

I could have refused. I could have stopped her.

And yet I hadn’t. And even now my body was still hot and the feeling had gone from my legs.

But when I looked for anger toward Selene — I couldn’t find it. Even now I could feel the warmth of her all through me.

Just for tonight. When we wake up tomorrow, we can forget all of it.

I would take her at her word, and by morning I would let it all go.

If something like this happened once more, I probably wouldn’t be able to come back from it. Whether that was good or bad — there was no room left to think about that now.