Aymeric was resplendent in blue. She always had liked it on him—it was a lucky coincidence that his house’s colors so suited him. The crimson of House Dzemael did not wear half so well on Odette, and she had envied him when they had attended formal occasions. There was a look of surprise upon his face, and then it softened.

“Odette,” he said, and then he cleared his throat. “Is aught amiss? I had been told all was well in Mor Dhona.”“It is,” she told him. “May I come in?”He nodded, stepping back from the door. “Of course. It’s wonderful to see you again.”

That was exactly what he had said a sennight before. He had kissed her hand and then left thereafter, and although Odette had gotten used to the idea that most of her old friends didn’t remember her at all after the Calamity, it had been harder to countenance the thought that his recall had been incomplete.

Odette closed the door behind herself, and searched his face for any trace of expression that might give him away one way or the other. She found none. “Do you recall,” she said after a moment, “the midwinter masque just before my grandfather abdicated his counthood?”Aymeric nodded. “We all dressed as saints that year,” he said. “Well, the four of us.”“What else do you recall from that evening?” Odette prompted.He glanced aside, clearing his throat. Though Aymeric’s expression never lost its composure, she could not help but note the tips of his ears had tinged pink.“Ah,” Odette said. “So you do remember.”“How could I forget?” he asked, voice low and throaty.Odette pursed her lips. “The world entire had forgotten me, and you seemed not to recall our shared history.”He fixed his blue, blue eyes upon her. “Forgive me,” he said. “I had not meant to give you such a poor impression.”She said nothing, only looked at him, and hoped her face did not give her away. It would never do, Maman had taught her, to allow a man to see how much she longed for him.

“Of course I remember, Odette,” he said. “With my last breath I will remember, I do not doubt.”“But you gave no sign.”He laughed, and there was a desperate edge to it. “I warred with myself over it,” he admitted. “But what sign could I have given that would not have led me to find myself in a compromising position in Lord Haurchefant’s office?”Odette grinned. “I do not think you know Lord Haurchefant very well,” she told him. “Regardless, we are in your office now. Do you trust this lock as well as your old one?”

That thought circled the bounds of her skull like an eager predator, and every time it resounded she could not help but be reminded of the last man to think it. But Hythlodaeus did not appear and offer her answers, and even if she created a shade of Hades to walk this city—after all, she’d done such a thing before, and wasn’t that chilling?—he would have no knowledge she was not already possessed of.

Sitting atop the archway crowning the capital building, Shasi considered it anyway. There was always the possibility that she was choosing to ignore such things as she already knew, and the technique would bring her subconscious to the fore. It was a dangerous gambit, of course, and she wrestled with it, and with the binary decision to tell Urianger of her plans or to tell no one. It was Urianger, after all, who was most familiar with the technique, though she had never owned her part in it. To tell him would require an accounting for Myste and a confession that she was responsible—and in some way eager to do it again. Urianger had been patient with the impulses her grief had driven her to, being more than familiar himself, but she was not at all certain his trust extended so far.

There was a flicker of white in the streets below. It startled Shasi from her thoughts, and she tracked it with her eyes a long few moments—just a white point upon stone streets, little different from the black figures of the Amaurotines.

She came down the same way she had come up—by hand, feeling the grit of the facade beneath her fingertips. It was a long climb, and her heart was in her throat all the while, but it was not really the fall she feared. The last time she had seen him, after all, he had tried to kill her. And still she scrambled down the side of the building, pausing on the balcony over the portico to scan the streets again. The white figure—there—smaller than the titans who walked these streets in their robes of black.

She could have just gone back inside and taken the elevator back down to the ground floor, but it felt dangerous to take her eyes off him even for a moment, so when she climbed down onto one of the pillars, she pulled herself around it so that she climbed its inside, looking out over the city.

It’s dangerous to climb so high, little one! one of the shades admonished. “I’m coming down,” Shasi protested, and vaulted herself back to the street. Her bootheels hit the stone, and she hustled away, black robe fluttering behind her.

Shasi had never been much a rogue, but discretion was better than haste now, lest more of those well-meaning shades henpeck her on the approach and give her away. To the Polyleritae District, then—which Shasi could not help but think an oddity. He had never been so concerned with such things before. But a fluttering of white in a sea of black robes was not hard to track, even if the lion’s share of her experience had come from tailing beasts for the hunt clans and not Echo-blessed emissaries.

The figure rounded a corner, and Shasi hustled to catch up, but when she came around the edge of the building she found the white-robed figure staring back at her. She stopped short, hands frozen at her sides.

“I thought you were …” “Elidibus?” Lensha asked. “Yes. If I were, what would you have sought? Answers or the fight?” Shasi frowned. “I know which I am likelier to get.” Lensha’s gaze swept over her, scrutiny sharp as knives. She smoothed a hand over her own white robes. “But it does not stop you trying, does it.” Shasi lifted a hand to her chest, rubbing lightly at her breastbone. Whatever fragile hope of peace the Emissary had offered once had broken like her rib cage beneath the force of his blade stroke. “What are you doing here?” Lensha only looked at her flatly. “This is my city,” she said. “As you well know.”

Shasi shook her head. “How could I have known that?” “Because it was yours once, Menelaus.” The name was unfamiliar to her, and yet it resonated. “Menelaus,” she repeated, feeling the shape of it in her mouth. “Or shall I call you by your title instead? You did abdicate,” she said, testily. “What are—what do you mean? How could you know all this?” Lensha looked at her a while longer, and Shasi understood then the expression that all those masks hid. It was patronizing and a little discomforting, to be looked upon as an ignorant child. “Sappho told me,” she said, as though it were obvious. “Though if you do not recognize your own name, I doubt you would recognize hers. Let us call her, instead, Igeyorhm.”

Shasi only stared at Lensha in return. It was quite the admission, especially given this was the very first time Lensha had deigned to tell her about herself. “What should I call you?” Shasi wondered. “Lensha Hathaar,” replied the other woman. “But you know my name!” Lensha only tilted her head briefly. “Be grateful for that,” she said. “Why did you come to this city of ghosts?” “For answers,” Shasi said. “So that is why your hand never went to your blade. I see. Well, hero, I wish you the joy of finding a satisfactory end.” Shasi’s expression turned dubious, the mirror to Lensha’s own. “I doubt that.” “Nothing ever ends,” Lensha said instead. “We walk the same circles, lifetime after lifetime. We think the same thoughts. All that we have done we will do over and over again. You will seek closure until your breath leaves your lungs, leaving others to seek it after you.” “You came here the same as I,” Shasi said. “Yes,” Lensha said. “To lose it later, I must have it now. Do you see?”

“I do have to congratulate you on your choreography,” Shasi said. The mage—for he was certainly that; it was only what kind that she questioned—smiled nervously. “I really don’t know what you mean,” he said. His gloved hand tightened on the head of his cane, and Shasi found her gaze drawn to it. The finial was like a wolf’s head, carved of bone. That would be the ideal sort of tool for a thaumaturge, she knew; she’d seen enough of them about their work back in Ul’dah, of course. Her gaze snapped upward again. “Soul crystals are supposed to be priceless,” she said. “I’ve seen few enough in my life. Yet here you are, handing them out for a fistful of gil? Are they glass or simply hard candy?” “Neither,” replied a new voice. X’shasi turned her head toward its source and found the miqo’te man from earlier, dusting down his crimson bliaud. “Why don’t you get everything together, Martyn,” he suggested; “and let me talk to her.” “Ah,” she said, “the accomplice. You seem an odd sort for a ‘blue mage.’” He laughed. “How is that?” “You’re not even wearing blue,” she pointed out, gesturing to his rust-red garb. It made him resemble X’rhun all the more. “Really,” he said. Laughter sparkled in his tone. “Because I had heard you were a red mage, and you hardly look the part.” “You know me?” “You’re X’shasi,” he said. “Shakkal’s child.” Not the Warrior of Light; not the Champion of Eorzea. Her mother’s daughter. She closed her eyes a moment. “So you are Lynx tribe,” she said. “You must be from the Gyr Abanian sect too?” Whatever amusement had danced upon his face a few moments before faded. “Once,” he said.

Odette opened the lid and arrayed the contents before her. A dazzling array of gemstones glittered back, bright as the stars outside. Amethysts and pearls dominated, though there were many pieces older than Odette herself and not quite to her tastes—the Dzemael line was not as given to a particular canon of appearance as was, say, House Fortemps with its dark-haired count and his dark-haired sons. To look at Odette beside her cousin Archombadin, one might never have thought they were related, and it was not merely her mother’s Durendaire blood that made the difference. But such concerns were less material to her now—she perused her jewels not with an eye toward the Scholisticate’s benefactors’ gala or Manon de Hauterive’s next masque, but for something else.

The rings were small, even the elaborate ones easy to secret away. Most of the earrings were the same. Odette ran her fingers along the chain of one necklace, long enough to loop about her throat several times, a brooch with a swan motif she’d been given at her debut; a bracelet with a small reliquary said to hold a splinter of Saint Valeroyant’s lance. In the end she came to a string of pearls with a heavy pendant. Should one wish to disassemble it, Odette thought, it would be simple enough with a goldsmith’s tools to part the pendant from the pearls—to pry back the tines and let fall the stones—even to snip apart the string of pearls. But they would still be a bit too large, a touch too awkward.

Odette lifted the pendant from the tray, the pearls clacking against one another as she did. The candlelight caught on the pink sapphire that dominated the setting, and she ran her thumb along its facets for a moment. She was surpassingly fond of the piece, but it was impractical. “Brigitte,” she said after a moment. “Yes, miss,” her maid said, and in the mirror Odette could watch her gaze fall upon the stone in her hand. “Would you like me to have that made ready for the ball next week?” “No,” Odette said. She turned about in her chair, offering the necklace up. “This is for you.” “Miss Odette,” Brigitte protested. “I couldn’t possibly!” Odette shook her head. “You really must,” she said, nonplussed. “There will be no work for you here soon.” “And a deal sooner if it’s said that I stole my lady’s jewels!” Odette blinked. Then she shook her head. “I’ll write a letter of recommendation to guard your reputation, but soon there will be nothing for you here. I tell you this in strictest confidence.” Brigitte laughed, not with joy but merely surprise. “What am I to do with this?” she wondered. “This is fit for wearing to your uncle’s investiture, not any occasion I might attend!” “Then sell it,” Odette said. Her tone was airy, but there was a part of her that despaired at the idea of her necklace going to market. “I can think of one occasion it might be meet for, though,” she said. “Oh, and what is that?” Brigitte retorted. Her surprise had made her bold, but that boldness only made Odette smile. “Your wedding, of course,” Odette said. “You must know that Micheloux is fond of you.” “And I am fond of him, but what of it?” Odette simply shrugged. As she stacked the trays back into the silver box, she spoke. “Since Grandpère is abdicating, he’ll have more need of his draftsmen than ever. Micheloux will have steady work, and if you retire from this house on the occasion of your marriage, no one would remark on it.” Brigitte seemed to consider this, staring down at the necklace in her hand. “My lady is much too kind,” she said. “Not kind,” Odette said. “Only practical.” Not kind at all.

* * * * *

“Selfish girl,” a woman was saying. Her teacup rattled against the saucer, placed there indelicately by an angry hand. Estellise de Dzemael was perfectly composed in public, but from time to time in private her mask would slip. “What was she thinking? At a time like this.” “She’s getting married, Maman,” Colette said placidly. She sipped at her tea. “It can’t be helped.”

Estellise huffed in annoyance. “She could at least have waited until after the feast. It’s obvious that Odette can’t dress herself, and I won’t have you embarrassing us on such an important occasion.” “Whatever could you possibly mean?” Odette asked. She did not meet her mother’s eyes, only looked down at the milky tea still remaining in her cup. “Look at you,” Estellise admonished. “You came to tea in your jerkin!” “Yes, Maman,” Odette said. “I had patrol this morning, as you well know. I was lucky to make it back at all.” “I don’t mind sharing the services of my maid,” Colette said. She reached for one of the little sandwiches set on a tray between the three of them. Estellise slapped the back of her hand: “Stop that,” she said, “or we’ll have to schedule another fitting, and there isn’t time! Look at you, your clothes barely fit you as it is!” Odette exchanged a glance with her sister, and in that look was the secret language of twins: it was true that Colette’s clothes perhaps didn’t fit her as well as they usually did, but she’d gone back to wearing foundation garments that made her uncomfortable. The newer replacements were in need of a bit of sewing up, but with a bit of luck they’d be ready before the new count’s investiture feast. Odette doubted that made the remark any easier to bear in the moment, though. Later, she was sure, she would hold Colette’s head against her shoulder and stroke her hair.

For the moment, though, Estellise seemed satisfied that her younger daughter was cowed, and turned her rancor back on Odette. “You had no duties the other day,” she said, “when you joined my sister and I at luncheon, and you were half a mess then too.” “I thought I looked quite nice,” Odette said. “That gown is your favorite color, and I’ve always gotten compliments on it, so I really don’t know what you mean.” “A woman with no jewels is half-undressed,” Estellise hissed. “You might as well have showed up naked.” “There’s a thought,” Odette quipped. Her mother’s face crumpled with anger. “You didn’t wear so much as a necklace! Where was that gaudy thing you love so much, hmm? It’s ugly, but at least you wouldn’t have looked shabby.” “It needed a bit of polishing,” Odette said simply. “You won’t see it before the feast.” She wouldn’t see it after, but there was no point in telling her mother that. Estellise shook her head. “My sister will think we’ve fallen on hard times, to say nothing of how the servants will talk. Why are you always creating trouble for me, ungrateful child?” “If it makes you feel any better,” Odette said, “I will point out that I’m wearing my favorite earrings right now.”

* * * * *

She was wearing them a few days later, too, when she adjourned herself to the Congregation of Our Knights Most Heavenly. It was not merely House Dzemael which was experiencing a changing of the guard, and the Temple Knights’ headquarters were abuzz with activity. Odette cast her gaze about for the shock of white hair that usually allowed her to pick Estinien out of the crowd. The dragoon had always been closer to her twin than to her, but Odette didn’t doubt but that he could point her where she needed to go—at least for the pleasure of being shut of her thereafter.

Spying a head of pale hair, Odette fair sprinted up the steps. “Estinien,” she called, and that head turned. It was not Estinien at all, and she didn’t know how she’d made the mistake. The pale hair crowned a woman wearing a silvery circlet. Her eyes were brilliantly sea-green, and would have been beautiful if they did not look on Odette so coldly. “You’re …” Odette said, groping for an end to that sentence. “Ser Lucia,” she replied. “And you are Ser Odette de Dzemael. Were you looking for Ser Estinien?” Odette shook her head briefly, as though she could as easily shrug off her discomfort. “I was looking for Ser Aymeric, actually.” “The Lord-Commander is indisposed,” Ser Lucia replied. “Oh, I doubt that very much,” Odette said, laughing to herself as she turned away.

It should have bothered her, perhaps—Aymeric was a year her junior, after all, and though he was a skilled swordsman that had never been what had seen him promoted. It might have been easier to resent him had she not known that the rumors surrounding his birth were true—and had she not known him as he grappled with the implications as he came of age. Instead, as she made her way to the Lord Commander’s seat, she almost pitied him. The old accusations would come up again, like a bad gil, and he would have to weather them alone.

Aymeric’s office as Second Commander sat vacant, awaiting some new appointment to replace him, and so Odette continued to the end of the hall. She pressed her ear to the door, as she’d had long practice doing, but heard no voices within. Indisposed. What had this strange woman thought to do by keeping Odette from him? She shook her head, and lifted her hand to knock.

He really was everything a knight should be, and she remembered it every time he fixed her with those sky-blue eyes. Standing in the doorway to the chambers that were his new seat of power, Aymeric smiled at her. “Ah,” he said. “Odette. To what do I owe the pleasure? ’Tis an early hour yet for lunch.” Tempting as it had been to slip in at midday for a more proper farewell, Odette only shook her head. “I needed to speak with you,” she said. Then she said something strange: “Lord-Commander.” He frowned at her, his skin crinkling between his brows. “Of course,” he said, and took a step back to allow her in. He closed the door a moment later, and Odette led him back to the desk—his desk, already stacked with reams of paperwork and reports.

“I met someone interesting on the way in here,” Odette said. “A Ser Lucia? She had told me you were busy.” Aymeric glanced aside a moment. “Ser Lucia is my aide,” he said. “She was stationed at the Convictory before this, I believe, and recalled to aid in the transition. Perhaps she was simply overzealous in guarding my time. You must imagine there are any number of questions right now, and if I were to answer each one personally, I would have time for nothing else.” Odette pursed her lips. “No,” she said, “she knew who I was … so she ought to have known you’d want to see me. Besides, I’ve actually come on business for once.” Aymeric nodded. “What is it?”

Odette drew her sword. She held it loosely in one hand with the practiced ease that came from spending half a lifetime learning its use, but she did not wield it then, merely held it—at least until she laid it across his desk. “I’ve come to tender my resignation,” she said. He laughed—but like Brigitte a sennight before, his laughter was not borne of amusement but surprise. “Surely you have more faith in me than that,” he said. “Are we not old friends?” They were more than that, but Odette merely nodded. “I think the Archbishop chose wisely when he elected to appoint you to the position,” she said, “and I think that would be the case even if matters did not … stand as they do.” She set beside the blade a small book bound in leather covers—an illuminated manuscript that contained the text of her commission with the Temple Knights. That had been a gift from Aymeric himself, though he had protested it was from all of House Borel at the time. She slid it across the desk toward him. “Odette,” he said softly. “I have known you for the better part of my life, and in all that time you have wanted nothing so much as you have wanted to serve the Temple Knights.”

He was right, of course. She had even wanted it more than she’d wanted him—at least she had always been true to her office, if little else. “Things have changed,” she said. “You will have heard that Grandpère is retiring?” “Of course,” Aymeric said. “Colette told me weeks ago that Count Tarresson was abdicating.” “Circumstances at the house will not permit my service here any longer,” Odette said. Aymeric regarded her curiously. “Are you then to be a knight of your house instead?” he wondered. Odette looked down at the little book, in which had been written all her dreams. She was surprised at the ache in her chest—it had been easy to give up her jewels, and their value in coin at least was far dearer than the manuscript, though she did not doubt it had cost Aymeric a great deal to have it made—especially as a boy of fifteen summers counted such things. “It is because of those events I must withdraw my blade from service,” she said. “And if I refuse?” Aymeric said softly. “You would make of me a deserter?” Odette asked. There was a sharp note of panic in her voice. “Keep your blade,” the Lord-Commander said. “Ishgard may have need of it in the future.” She shook her head. “Should you call for it, I cannot promise to answer.”

“Ah,” he said after a moment. “So you are leaving.” A cold thrill shot through her, and she lifted her gaze to his. Others had suspected, perhaps, but she saw his confidence there in those eyes that ought to have been cold. “None have dared to say so,” she replied. “Not even you?” he murmured. “I cannot answer your questions, Aymeric,” she said softly. For a moment she felt a pang of heartache. It sat foreign in her breast, so strange that she was convinced for a moment it should have been his. Why should it have been? She had cause to wonder, and found herself turning over in her mind Ser Lucia’s eyes, dark and cold as the deep ocean. “Keep your blade,” Aymeric said once more, gently this time. “When I hear word that you have gone, you will be gone on a mission, and the duty to investigate will rest with me.” “Will you come after me?” Odette asked. He must have gauged the note of fear in her voice. “No,” he said. “Will I see you again before you go?” “No,” she replied. “Then may I kiss you goodbye?”

She only nodded, afraid of how her voice might sound if she dared to speak. Aymeric lifted a hand to her chin, his delicate touch tipping her face upward so that he could lean down and let his lips brush hers. He kissed her as gently as morning dew, and she repaid him, and for a long few moments they stood exchanging what would be their last kiss, until the next came, and the next, and in the end he put his arms around her and held her to his chest, his lips brushing her forehead.

Odette had the terrible inkling then that he might ask her to stay—to trade being a daughter for being a wife; one sort of bondage for another. She also had a horrible premonition that if she allowed herself to hear the question, she would say yes. She could not allow that to come to pass, so she retrieved her sword and her commission, and put the Congregation and its knightly commander at her back.

* * * * *

It was at her back when she stood beneath the Arc of the Worthy, her chocobo’s reins in hand. The bird was bridling at the delay, or perhaps at the sounds of a busy square. Odette was more than a little nervous herself—and dwelling on the details was no help. She could feel links of chain pressed against her skin, body-warm through her undershirt. It had taken weeks to sew them in beside the bones of her stays, and she had never been patient enough for embroidery until she had to be.

A few moments later, Finnea’s nervous chirrups were answered by the kweh! of another chocobo, and Odette turned her head to watch her twin approach. She was not alone, Odette was surpassingly annoyed to notice—there was a man sat astride the saddle behind her.

“Who’s this?” Odette demanded to know. “Nobody important,” the man said. He had dark skin and hair, and his features were not familiar. “Rempart Myste,” Colette said. “He works in the stables and found me readying my bird.” “Keen to join us on our ride into the countryside?” Odette asked. “I had hoped to go riding alone with my sister before all the excitement begins back at the house.” “I dropped one of my saddlebags,” Colette explained. “When he saw what I was carrying …” Odette turned her eyes on the man—Rempart. “Are you blackmailing my sister?” “No, miss,” he said. “I thought you were supposed to be loyal to House Dzemael,” Odette mused. “I swore my oaths to Count Tarresson,” Rempart replied, “not to his fool son. And unless I miss my guess, you were supposed to be loyal to House Dzemael, too.” “What do you want, then?” Odette asked. It was Colette that answered. “He wants what we want,” she said. “He wants out of that terrible house.” Colette hesitated. “He … dreams the same dreams.”

She swung herself up into the saddle of her chocobo and together the three of them passed beneath the Arc of the Worthy. The Steps of Faith stretched out before them, brilliantly white in the morning sun. Beyond them lay Coerthas, vast and green, and beyond that, the whole world.

Perhaps the sweetness was not all down to the flowers, though—Jaela was sitting cross-legged on a cushion, pinching fogweed from a little tin. Its earthy-sweet smell was compounded by the scent of molasses. Shasi watched her with interest, but neither of them spoke for a while.

At length, V’jaela said, “Can you hand me that, please?” and reached past Shasi to indicate a small silver snuffbox. Shasi picked it up, and was surprised to find it was cold to the touch. She lifted it to inspect it—it was small, about the size of Shasi’s palm—and round, the metal patinaed to black in the recesses of its relief. Like many things about V’jaela, it was Thavnairian—the repeating geometric patterns spoke to that, finials winding amongst the flowers. What Shasi had taken for gems at the center of each rosette were, she realized, minuscule ice shards.

After a moment, she handed it over with a wry smile. V’jaela returned the expression, and there was no impatience in it. She plucked the lid off to reveal a dry brick of sandy color. There was something faintly spicy about the smell. “My father was from Thavnair,” she said as she broke off a bit, crushing it and mixing it with the fogweed shisha. “But my mother—well, one of my mothers—was from Sharlayan.” “And the other?” Shasi wondered. “Gyr Abania,” she replied. “She was a red mage too,” V’jaela continued, placing the bowl atop a hookah that sat before the pair, glittering in the sun. “Anyway, this curious bit of syncretism makes me think of them.” She closed the snuffbox, setting it aside, and snapped a thin metal plate into place atop the clay bowl. Atop that, she set a fire crystal.

Thin wisps of smoke rose in the afternoon air as V’jaela wiped her hands clean and sat back. She half-lounged over the pillows scattered across the floor, stretching out a hand to trail her fingernail along Shasi’s arm. The invitation went unspoken, but Shasi took it anyway, stretching out on her side. V’jaela curled one bare arm around Shasi’s shoulders, playing lightly with her hair.

There was only the one hose, not that either of them minded sharing. There was something elegant about the way that V’jaela handled herself—though it really only made sense; doubtless she had far more experience.

The glass sweated, beads of condensation catching the colors of sunset, and the world grew more distant, the edges of Shasi’s concern dulling. They took turns with the hookah, and in between drank honey lemonade with sprigs of mint, and Shasi allowed herself to simply enjoy the feeling of warm skin against her own. She traced the shape of Jaela’s clan markings, which tracked like dark tears from the inner corner of her eye down her cheeks.

Jaela leaned up to kiss her, gentle but inexorable. She tasted of smoke and spice and the lingering sweetness of honey lemons. The night deepened around them, and Jaela pulled her close for warmth, her lips lingering over Shasi’s skin.

“I want to try something,” Shasi said. Jaela’s eyes were alert then, mismatched and luminous. She nodded. “We can …” Shasi shifted her weight, propping herself up on one elbow, pressing Jaela back against the blankets with her hip. Their legs tangled together, their tails intertwining. “Take it out of me,” Shasi said, and took a long pull from the hookah. Then she leaned down to fit her mouth to Jaela’s own.

It’s slow, unhurried at first; Shasi let her breath all but trickle into Jaela’s mouth. She set the mouthpiece down to slip her hand under Jaela’s head, fingers knotting in her hair to hold them together. Jaela breathed in, her kiss desperate, sucking almost, drinking in the air and the smoke until there was nothing left in Shasi’s lungs. Shasi only held tighter then, her hand a fist in crimson hair. Her other arm slipped about Jaela’s shoulders, hand clamped. Jaela struggled against that hold only to slip her hands under Shasi’s shirt, her nails trailing over her back.

Shasi breathed in; her turn then to suck the air from Jaela’s lungs. The taste of smoke was weaker, commingled with the sweetness of Jaela’s mouth, and Shasi shifted her weight to lie more firmly atop the other woman, as though pressing the breath from her. She counted the seconds, breath passing from lungs to lungs—in and out between the pair of them, hazy with the smoke and dizzy with the lack of fresh air. Her pulse was palpable somewhere behind her eyes, as real and immediate as the feeling of Jaela’s hardening nipples through the silk of her shirt. Shasi drew back, gulping fresh air. Jaela shuddered, panting. It was a sweet sound, hot and desperate.