## Chapter 275 — The Part They Could Fit The first photograph made Thomas look as though Isha had captured him. He stood beside her in front of the balcony curtains, one hand at her waist and the other hanging with unnecessary formality at his side. Isha faced the camera directly. Thomas had turned toward her during the final second of the timer because she had moved closer, leaving the image with her composed green eyes and his profile beneath an expression of mild suspicion. Isha studied it on the phone. “I like this one.” “It suggests I was unaware that a record was being made.” “You were aware. You had eight seconds.” “I used seven of them correctly.” Sunday afternoon light filled the LDK without becoming direct sun. The rain had ended before noon, leaving the balcony rail wet and the buildings beyond it pale beneath clearing cloud. Thomas’s phone rested on the middle shelf of a bookcase, supported by two cookbooks and the stable ceramic cup from Hoi An. The rocking cup had been rejected after the first attempt tilted the camera enough to make the flat appear to be sliding toward the river. Isha wore the repaired black dress. Kanno’s work had made the torn seam almost invisible. A slight ripple remained when the fabric moved across Isha’s hip, and the pale abrasion along the lower edge caught light at certain angles. Her hair fell loose behind her except for the front section she had deliberately tucked away from both ears. Thomas had noticed the gesture and left it unnamed. The people receiving the photograph knew Isha with long pointed ears, travelling leathers and a bow close enough to reach before thought. They had been told she was human now. A printed image would make the word physical. Thomas wore a dark blue shirt and ordinary trousers. His shoulder moved freely when he reset the timer. The last visible bruise had gone, leaving no reason for the photograph to carry it. “We should take one where both of us look toward the camera,” he said. “We have three.” “In one you are blinking. In the other I appear shorter than I am because you stood nearer the lens.” “You are shorter than I am.” “The photograph enlarged the administrative difference.” Isha looked at him over the phone. “Stand closer, then.” She returned to the mark they had made on the floor with a folded receipt. Thomas started the timer and joined her. This time she slipped one arm behind his back before he settled, drawing him against the line of her body. His hand found her waist by habit. The dress was smooth beneath his palm, the repaired seam just beyond his thumb. The camera sounded. Neither moved immediately. Isha lowered her face and kissed him. The next automatic photograph caught only the beginning of it: her eyes half closed, Thomas turning into her, both of them already forgetting the phone. “That one is not for Kelda,” Thomas said when they reviewed it. “No.” Isha saved it separately. They chose the preceding image. Thomas looked directly toward the camera, his expression calmer than he remembered feeling. Isha stood close enough that the difference in height remained visible without being the photograph’s subject. Her left arm curved around him, and the repaired black dress showed clearly from shoulder to knee. Both rounded ears were visible beneath the pale fall of her hair. They looked healthy. The result was more persuasive than the sentence they had revised for six days. Thomas transferred the image to the computer in the office. The page layout already contained the Common text in narrow machine-even lines, arranged across both sides of one sheet. The photograph occupied a rectangle near the top of the first side, smaller than the picture of Mugi they had sent before. Beneath it, Isha added a short caption by hand after the test print emerged. **Thomas and Isha in our home after returning. The black dress was repaired.** Thomas read it. “They can see the dress.” “They cannot see that it was the same one.” “They have never seen the dress.” “Kelda has sufficient imagination.” The printer produced a second copy. They weighed it against the previous page using the small kitchen scale, though both knew the difference of ink could not matter beside the impossible distance involved. The photograph added no separate material. The sheet remained one sheet. Isha returned to the dining table with the draft. The paragraph about Da Nang occupied the lower half of the first side. They had begun with the sea. That choice survived every revision. Da Nang had been hot, bright and crowded with movement. They had crossed roads among motorbikes, eaten mì Quảng near the beach, climbed through the Marble Mountains and walked the old streets of Hoi An beneath lanterns and balconies. They had bought two green cups related closely enough to belong together and differently enough that one rocked when touched. The attack followed after those things. Thomas had initially placed it near the end, after the dress repair and his return to judo. Isha moved it earlier. Hiding it among recovery facts made the page sound as though they hoped Kelda would reach the reassuring sentence before understanding the dangerous one. Their current wording occupied nine lines. > On our final night, two drunken men followed us into a narrow road and attacked us. Isha stopped them. She used less force than she would have used in our old world and did not kill them or damage them beyond recovery. Thomas moved us towards light and witnesses and called the city watch. Several people saw enough to support our account. The watch recorded what happened and allowed us to leave. Thomas bruised his shoulder. Isha bruised one hand, her ribs and one thigh. No bones broke. Neither of us lost consciousness. We recovered and have returned to work and training. Isha read it again. The draft in her notebook contained one additional sentence beneath the paragraph. **I liked that the answer was mine.** She had written it on Monday evening, stared at it for long enough that Thomas had stopped sorting the other questions, then drawn one line through it. The words remained legible. They were still true. “You could include it,” Thomas said. Isha rested her fingertips on the crossed sentence. “Kelda would understand what I meant.” “Yes.” “She might also spend the next page asking whether I am becoming someone I do not wish to be.” Thomas sat beside her rather than across the table. The page between them carried no room for the conversation that might follow on the other side of the worlds. “Would you want her to ask?” “Perhaps.” Isha closed the notebook over the sentence. “Not when the question takes another cycle to return.” She did not move the words onto the printed page. The remaining space had become more difficult after they decided to ask about Erenai. Thomas’s first list included Erenai, Merra, Eldan, Ressa, Orsa, Bel, the people of the western cliff settlement, the ash cisterns, the Broken Court, the King Beneath and the lower signs beneath the mountains. It resembled an administrative request for the state of the world. Isha had placed the list beside Kelda’s last letter. Kelda’s third page had described the east-road contract through mud, stone, an old culvert wall and people who disagreed about whether a repair finished when water stopped escaping or when the road stopped complaining. It had also reported that the left drawer of her new workbench still stuck in damp weather. Thomas suspected she had left it that way partly because repairing it would end the subject. The page had contained damage, work, irritation and pleasure in proportions Kelda chose herself. They had no right to replace that with a report form. By Sunday afternoon, the questions had narrowed to three short paragraphs. > If Erenai is willing for you to tell us, what work has she chosen now? Does she still carry the living account between the western settlements, and does the ear Thomas restored trouble her? > > Did the final account reach the King Beneath? Have the mountains given any further lower signs since the true demons died? > > Tell us one thing that Merra, Eldan, Ressa or another survivor of the lower hands and Broken Court has chosen for their own life. One thing is sufficient. Do not turn the whole reply into an injury register because we asked. Thomas had objected to the final instruction on the grounds that Kelda might regard it as a challenge. Isha had kept it for the same reason. The paragraph about her possible match came before the questions. They had avoided Earth terminology that would arrive without context. > Isha has given her name for consideration in a modern unarmed fighting sport. The fighters wear padded coverings on their hands, agree to forbidden attacks and are watched by a judge who can stop the match. A healer checks them before they fight. No opponent has been chosen, and there may be no match. Thomas is worried. He is also supporting her choice. Isha is pleased by both facts. Thomas had tried to remove the final sentence. Isha restored it. The page ended with their names and the same bounded permission used before: Kelda could read it to Mira, Rowan, Mara, Tessa, Sereth, Ruvan, Aelira and Lethira if she judged it safe. Nothing in the page was intended for a crown, temple, Guild or mountain office. The question about the King Beneath did not change that. They asked whether he had received the final account of the Broken Court, not whether he should learn that Thomas and Isha lived. Thomas made one final correction where the Common phrase for *city watch* could also imply soldiers assigned to a gate. Isha changed it to *people given local authority to receive reports and call other officers*. The explanation cost four additional words and avoided placing an army in a Da Nang side street. They printed the final sheet. Isha inspected both sides for missing glyphs, blurred ink and accidental marks. Thomas checked the photograph, the names and the target line. They compared the copy with their handwritten source until repeated attention stopped improving accuracy. The final page went into a clear protective sleeve. The rejected photographs remained on the office desk. --- Shibata read the candidate form on Tuesday before class. He stood behind the reception counter while Isha changed from outdoor shoes into clean training sandals. The gym above the bicycle-parts shop carried the familiar impacts of the earlier session: heavy bag strikes, feet on mat and the timer announcing the final thirty seconds to people who no longer needed the warning. Shibata checked the legal name, weight, training record and injury declaration. He paused at the line describing retained fighting experience before current sport training, then turned to the media section. “You declined promotional use.” “Yes.” “The organiser can still record the match for officials and insurance. Other people will have phones.” “I understand.” He looked at the date of the Da Nang injuries. “Any symptom today?” “No. My hand closes fully. My ribs do not hurt under rotation or pressure. The thigh bruise is gone.” “Then train normally. If an opponent is proposed, the event doctor decides what they need from the earlier injury. I am sending this tonight.” He signed the coach section and added a note beneath the experience box in compact Japanese. Isha read it upside down. **Competition novice. Substantial retained practical experience. Coach review required before any pairing.** “What does substantial mean to the organiser?” she asked. “It means they call me instead of pretending the blank space is convenient.” Shibata placed the form in his office tray. “Nothing changes in training until there is an opponent and you accept. Do not prepare for an imaginary woman.” Arai was wrapping her hands near the wall. She waited until Shibata moved away before asking, “Did you surrender the paperwork?” “I submitted it.” “Then an organiser will eventually ask three questions already answered on the first page.” “Why?” “To make sure the answers survive repetition.” The class began before Arai could identify which questions. Isha trained without protection for old bruises. Arai’s body hook reached her ribs at the agreed force and found no injury. Wall drills pressed her shoulder and hip against the padded surface. During grappling, Hoshino trapped one of Isha’s arms beneath her own body and forced her to solve the position from the wrong side. Isha lost the first exchange, recovered the second and ended the final round beneath a choke she recognised early enough to tap before pressure sharpened. No one asked about Da Nang. When she reached home, the completed page remained in its sleeve on the office desk. Four days were left. --- The opening arrived on Saturday after breakfast. No bell sounded. No object appeared. Thomas felt the first remote pressure when he placed his fingertips against the sleeved page and deliberately thought of Kelda Flintvein of Green Road. It was weaker than the pressure that accompanied Cleanse and less local. The sensation did not gather behind his eyes or in his chest. It seemed to notice him from somewhere without direction, then wait. Thomas withdrew his hand. “Available,” he said. Isha stood beside the dining table in loose dark trousers and a pale sleeveless shirt. Her hair had been braided once down her back to keep it clear of her hands and Thomas’s face if he fell. She looked at the clock, then at him. They did not begin immediately. Thomas ate the rest of his rice, grilled fish and miso soup. Isha made him drink another half glass of water despite his observation that excessive preparation could produce its own practical problems during unconsciousness. She considered this and reduced the amount by one mouthful. The flat had already been secured. The balcony door was locked. Their phones were charged. Thomas’s phone sat on the floor beside the emergency number and the short explanation they would use if ordinary medical care became necessary. The explanation mentioned sudden loss of consciousness after a private neurological episode. It did not mention worlds, systems or Kelda. A folded futon covered the space between the sofa and the low table. The page lay alone on the tabletop. No sleeve, paperclip or second sheet accompanied it. Isha checked Thomas’s pulse while he sat against the sofa. “Normal,” she said. “You sound dissatisfied.” “I would prefer a pulse that refuses interruption.” “That would create other medical concerns.” She did not smile. The lane in Da Nang remained near enough to enter the room through small movements. Isha had watched Thomas strike the wall and ground while she controlled the two men attacking them. His shoulder had recovered. The memory in her hands had not received the same timetable. Thomas turned his palm beneath hers and linked their fingers. “We do not have to use it today.” “I know.” Isha’s thumb moved once over his knuckles. “Do you want to?” “Yes.” “So do I.” They reviewed the threshold once more. Isha would call emergency services immediately for abnormal breathing, seizure, chest pain, serious injury, discolouration or anything else that made the five-minute limit irrelevant. If Thomas remained unresponsive but otherwise stable for five minutes, she would call. A shorter period did not prove the next one would shorten again. The timer waited at zero. Thomas moved from the sofa to the centre of the futon. Isha sat behind and slightly beside him, one leg folded against his hip, positioned to control his head and shoulders if his body lost tone. The arrangement was closer than the first protocol had required. Thomas leaned back until he felt her chest between his shoulder blades. “I can begin from here,” he said. “That is why you are here.” Her arm crossed his upper chest. The hold was protective, intimate and too secure to mistake for an emergency technique alone. Thomas looked at the photograph printed on the page. The machine had reproduced Isha’s hair in pale bands and softened the green of her eyes, but the human shape of her ears remained clear. His own face looked older than the one Kelda had last seen and less worn than the person who had crossed Fallen Isle. The repaired black dress carried no visible history unless someone knew where to look. He placed two fingers on the upper corner. “Kelda Flintvein of Green Road,” he said in Common. “This page is chosen by Thomas Albrecht and Isha Vaeloren. It is for you. Share it only with the people named if you judge it safe.” The distant pressure gathered. Thomas held the person rather than the words: Kelda at the worktable in their house outside Larchmeet, broad hands over paper, dark hair shortened for work, restored body carrying strength she still distrusted in small tools. Green Road as three. The road between worlds as one narrow permission. He accepted the start command. The page vanished. There was no flash or movement of air. One moment the sheet existed beneath his fingers; the next the tabletop showed uninterrupted wood. Thomas’s hand remained suspended over the empty place. The pressure passed through him. Isha caught his wrist before it fell. His body folded backward into her, every muscle releasing at once. She lowered him across the futon, guiding his head against her thigh, and started the timer. His breathing continued. Isha placed two fingers at his neck, then moved them to his wrist. The pulse was steady and slightly faster than before. His face retained normal colour. His eyes were closed without movement beneath the lids. The timer reached twenty seconds. Isha adjusted his head so his airway remained clear. One hand stayed on his chest. The other enclosed his wrist with enough pressure to feel every beat. At forty seconds, Thomas drew a deeper breath. Isha leaned closer. “Thomas.” No response came. She did not repeat his name continuously. The protocol required observation, not an attempt to call him across the distance by force. She watched the movement of his chest and the time. One minute. The previous send had kept him unconscious for two minutes and fifty-eight seconds. The first had taken twelve. The numbers did not form a promise. Isha knew that with the part of her mind that could read rules, previous results and risk. Her body knew only that Thomas was limp in her lap after choosing to cross something she could not follow. At one minute twenty, his fingers moved inside her hand. The motion was small and uncoordinated. Isha bent over him. “Thomas. Open your eyes.” His brow tightened. His lips parted without sound. The timer showed one minute thirty-six. Isha touched his cheek. His head turned slightly toward her palm. At one minute forty-one seconds, his eyes opened. They did not focus. Isha stopped the timer but left it visible beside them. Relief moved through her so sharply that she lowered her forehead to his before she could decide whether the position obstructed her view. “One forty-one,” she said. “You woke at one minute forty-one.” Thomas blinked. Grey-white static crossed his vision. It broke into horizontal lines, disappeared and returned with enough structure to form words. **TRANSFER SENT** The text tore through the centre. **30 CYCLES TILL NEXT PASSAGE** Then the interface collapsed. Thomas closed his eyes again. Isha lifted her head at once. “Stay awake.” “I am.” The words emerged slowly and without convincing evidence. “What did you see?” “Sent.” He swallowed. “Thirty.” His gaze found her after two attempts. The green of her eyes seemed too bright, edged by the pale blur of her hair. He tried to raise his head and discovered that the movement brought nausea from his stomach to the back of his throat. Isha pressed him gently down. “No.” “I was checking whether I could.” “You cannot.” “That was the result.” His voice sounded distant to him, as though each sentence reached his mouth after passing through another room. The pressure inside his head was mild but broad, less a sharp pain than an inability to place his thoughts in order. Isha checked his pupils with the phone light. Thomas objected on the second side only because the brightness hurt. She accepted the complaint as useful and turned it off. “One minute forty-one,” she repeated. “It may not mean—” “I know what it does not prove.” Her answer came faster than his sentence. She drew one breath before continuing more evenly. “It is shorter. You are breathing normally. You woke before two minutes. I am permitted to be happy about facts before you qualify them.” Thomas considered the argument. It contained too many parts for his current condition. “All right.” Isha kissed his forehead. Then his temple. The third kiss touched his hair near the ear and remained there long enough that Thomas understood she was no longer performing a check. He opened his eyes again. “The page?” “Gone.” “Photograph?” “It was part of the page.” “Good.” Isha’s arm slid beneath his shoulders. “Can you sit if I move you slowly?” “Yes.” She did not trust the answer. She raised him in stages, supporting his head against her shoulder. The room tilted left when he reached upright. Thomas corrected to the right and found Isha’s other arm already around his waist. “No standing,” she said. “I had not proposed it.” “You were considering the sequence after sitting.” Thomas rested his head against the upper curve of her chest. The sleeveless shirt left her shoulder warm beneath his cheek. Her heartbeat had not settled as quickly as his. Isha held him for several minutes on the floor. The timer remained frozen at **01:41**. His nausea eased when he stopped trying to track the room. Isha gave him one small sip of water, waited, then another. She touched his fingers and asked him to squeeze. Both hands answered equally. She asked the date, where they were and what had been sent. Thomas answered the first two correctly. On the third he said, “One page.” “What was on it?” “Our photograph. Da Nang. The attack. Your match. Erenai. King Beneath. Lower signs.” He paused. “People from the Court.” Isha kissed his hair again. “Good.” “I am being rewarded excessively for orientation.” “You are being kept awake.” “I appear awake.” “You attempted to include the table in the room’s movement.” “The table began it.” Isha shifted her legs beneath her. Thomas recognised the preparation too late. One arm passed behind his back, the other beneath his knees, and the futon dropped away as she stood. “I can walk,” he said. “No.” “I probably can.” “That is a poorer claim.” She carried him the short distance to the sofa. Thomas’s ordinary body was not light, but Isha lifted with the same controlled strength she used for awkward loads: close to her centre, no sudden turn, feet placed before movement. His arm went around her neck because the alternative was pretending balance no longer mattered. She lowered him onto the cushions and sat before releasing his legs. Thomas expected her to move to the other end of the sofa. Instead she settled behind him, drew him back between her thighs and wrapped both arms around his middle. A folded blanket came over them from the side. His head rested beneath her chin. “This exceeds observation,” he said. “Yes.” “The protocol contains no instruction to restrain the patient against an athletic woman.” “The protocol was incomplete.” Her palm spread over the centre of his chest. The other hand moved through his hair, separating strands with slow attention. Thomas let his eyes close. The page had gone. Somewhere beyond any direction he could name, the system had accepted the person, the words and the photograph as meaningful enough to carry. Whether it had already reached Kelda remained unknown. The absence on the table proved only that the road had taken it. Isha’s fingers paused whenever his breathing changed. After several minutes he said, “You may loosen your arms.” “I may.” “You have not.” “No.” Thomas opened one eye. From his position he could see the line of her jaw and the lower edge of her braid where it crossed her shoulder. “Does the apprentice have a right of appeal?” Isha looked down at him. The private word changed something in her expression. Her mouth softened, though her arms tightened until his back fitted more completely against her. “The apprentice may appeal when he can sit without leaning into his Mistress.” “I am being prevented from demonstrating that.” “You attempted demonstration on the floor. It was poor.” “That was earlier evidence.” “It remains admissible.” Thomas allowed the eye to close again. “The legal system here is severe.” “You chose the jurisdiction.” Her lips touched the top of his head. The nausea receded over the next twenty minutes, but the drained feeling deepened. Thomas could move each limb when asked. Coordinating more than one action remained unpleasant. When he tried to take the water glass from Isha, his fingers closed a fraction late around it. She removed the glass before it could tilt. “I can hold it.” “You nearly held it.” “The difference is temporary.” “Yes.” She brought the rim to his mouth herself. Thomas drank. The excessive care might have embarrassed him once. On another day he might have insisted upon recovering under his own control, turning ability into proof that protection was no longer necessary. Today the shape of Isha’s body around him made resistance seem both difficult and dishonest. Her hand returned to his chest after the glass was set down. “The lane is still close,” she said. Thomas waited. Isha’s voice had lost the humour she used for the revised protocol. “I watched you hit the wall. I knew you were alive. I knew your shoulder was moving. I still had to finish with them before I could reach you.” “You reached me quickly.” “That is not what my body remembers.” Thomas turned as far as her hold allowed. The movement brought his face against the side of her breast and made Isha adjust the blanket rather than release him. He found her hand and covered it with his. “This time I fell into you.” “Yes.” “You caught me.” “Yes.” The answers did not solve the lane. Isha lowered her face into his hair and remained there. By the time Thomas’s thoughts began arriving in the correct order, the light outside had shifted toward afternoon. The hydrangeas beyond the balcony were visible between neighbouring buildings, their wet colours bright against concrete and utility wire. A child called from the path near the river. Somewhere above them, a vacuum cleaner struck a skirting board twice. Flat 202 continued around the passage as though nothing impossible had occurred. Thomas tested sitting forward. Isha permitted six centimetres. The room remained level. He moved farther and stayed upright under his own control. His head felt heavy, and a dull ache persisted behind both eyes, but the nausea did not return. Isha watched every movement. “I can stand now,” he said. “You can sit.” “I have demonstrated sitting.” “You have demonstrated the beginning of sitting.” Thomas looked toward the kitchen. Before the transfer he had prepared a small pot of rice porridge with chicken, ginger and spring onion, mild enough for nausea and substantial enough to become lunch if nothing went wrong. It waited in the refrigerator. “I should eat.” “I agree.” “I can walk to the table.” Isha considered him for several seconds. “Stand once.” Thomas placed both feet on the floor. She rose with him, one hand at his elbow and the other spread across his back. He reached full height without the room moving. The second step went slightly to the left. Isha caught his waist. Thomas looked down at the arm now holding him. “Floor irregularity.” “We have lived here long enough to know the floor.” She guided him back to the sofa. Isha warmed the porridge while Thomas remained under the blanket. She kept him within sight from the kitchen, which required no effort in the open LDK but did produce an unusual number of glances over her shoulder. Steam rose when she stirred the pot. Thomas heard the spoon against ceramic, the microwave timer and the cupboard where she found the small bowl. She returned with one portion and sat close enough that their thighs touched. Thomas held out his hand for the spoon. Isha gave it to him. The first mouthful reached his mouth. The second shook enough to leave one grain of rice on his lower lip. Isha took the spoon. “That does not establish incapacity.” “It establishes that I prefer the faster method.” “You are enjoying this.” “I am relieved. Enjoyment has entered through the same opening.” She fed him another spoonful. Thomas accepted it. The porridge tasted gentler than he remembered making it, the ginger clear without becoming sharp. He tried to identify whether Isha had added water and lost the thought before reaching a conclusion. She wiped the grain of rice from his lip with her thumb. Her gaze remained there. Thomas leaned forward and kissed her thumb. Isha’s eyes lifted to his. She set the bowl on the low table and kissed him properly, one hand at the side of his neck. The kiss stayed soft because his head still objected to sudden movement. Thomas rested his palm at her waist and felt the tension held beneath her breathing. When she drew back, she touched her forehead to his. “One minute forty-one,” she said again. Thomas smiled. “You have recorded it.” “I may repeat it.” “It is not proof of future safety.” “I know.” She kissed the corner of his mouth. “It is one minute and seventeen seconds less than the previous send. You woke. You spoke. You are eating. I am happy.” This time Thomas did not qualify the statement. Isha resumed feeding him until the bowl was empty. She then made him wait fifteen minutes before allowing more water, though the medical basis for that interval appeared to consist mainly of her preference for remaining seated with him. The headache eased gradually. His hands stopped trembling. He could stand and walk to the bathroom under observation without touching the wall. Isha waited outside the door until he informed her that this part of nursing had become unreasonable. She moved one step away. When Thomas emerged, she inspected him from head to foot. “I remained conscious throughout,” he said. “That was the desired result.” They returned to the living room. The low table remained empty where the page had lain. Isha picked up the stopped timer and took a photograph of the display for their private record. Beneath the time she entered: **Fourth outgoing page. Meaningful waking at 1:41. Prolonged grogginess, poor balance, mild nausea, headache, hand tremor. Stable breathing and pulse. No acute complications.** Thomas read it over her shoulder. “You should include excessive detention.” “That was treatment.” “It lacked independent review.” “The patient attempted to blame the floor.” Isha saved the note. They did not begin another calendar immediately. Thirty cycles would pass before any further crossing, and the next opening belonged to whatever Kelda chose to send or not send. The new countdown could be entered tomorrow. For the rest of Saturday, Thomas remained inside Isha’s chosen radius. She permitted him to shower only after the headache had reduced and stood in the washroom while he did so, arranging clean clothes with such concentration that he declined to point out the transparency of her pretext. She used an ordinary towel on his hair instead of asking for Cleanse, rubbing gently until the dark strands stood in several directions. When he dressed, she checked the old shoulder once, though neither the transfer nor the carrying had affected it. They lay down in the bedroom before evening. Thomas expected an hour of rest. Isha turned it into an occupation. She settled behind him beneath the light blanket, one arm beneath his neck and the other around his waist. Her thigh rested over his. The hold left him warm, secure and unable to roll more than a few centimetres. His headache had faded to a low pressure. The grogginess remained, less disabling now than a steady pull toward sleep. “The page had both our faces,” Isha said. “Yes.” “Kelda has never seen this body.” “The page has begun the crossing. We do not know where it is yet.” “I know.” Isha’s hand moved slowly across his stomach. “It has our faces.” Thomas turned his head enough to see her. She had removed the braid. Pale hair spread across the pillow and over his shoulder. The earlier relief remained visible in her, no longer sharp enough to control every movement. She looked tired. Thomas touched the side of her face. “You should sleep too.” “I will.” “Your current method appears to require monitoring.” “My current method requires possession of the blanket.” “You have most of it.” “I have most of you.” The sentence carried enough private weight that Thomas’s breath changed. Isha noticed and smiled against the back of his neck, but she did not turn the afternoon into something his recovering body had not asked for. She kissed the place below his ear and held him closer. Thomas let his hand rest over hers. On the office desk, the unused print remained among the drafts. It showed Isha beginning to turn toward him before the camera finished counting, Thomas already looking back. Sleep reached him while he was still considering whether to move it into the notebook. Isha felt his body settle. She waited through several slow breaths before reaching for the bedside lamp. Thomas stirred when the room darkened. “Am I released?” “Tomorrow.” “That seems longer than the protocol.” Isha drew the blanket around them and placed her mouth near his ear. “The apprentice may sleep.” “A generous ruling.” “I have others.” Thomas did not ask what they were. Her arms remained around him when sleep returned.