## Chapter 431 — Another Kind of Visit

By half past six on Friday, 21 April 2028, Isha had run out of useful things to put in her Coach 1 bag. It lay open on the flexible-room floor with training clothes, notebook, water bottle and the course paperwork already inside it. She had checked the morning train twice. Thomas, sitting nearby with a basket of clean laundry, watched her unfold the printed schedule once more and asked whether the finishing time had changed since she last looked.

Isha folded it again. "No." Thomas told her he thought she was ready. She gave him a look which conceded very little and zipped the bag shut. Before she had carried it through to the bedroom, a message arrived on her phone.

**Can I come by for half an hour? I want to ask both of you something. Nothing is wrong.**

Thomas read the last sentence over her shoulder. "That makes it sound more worrying."

Isha agreed, replied that they were home, and received an estimate of twenty minutes from Kanno with, unusually, nothing else attached. They spent those twenty minutes on what they had already been doing. Thomas finished the laundry; Isha put the course bag beside the bedroom door and checked that her rings would stay home in the morning. The previous evening had already contained Mercury proofs, Lethira's news and a question Kanno had chosen not to ask Ian. Guessing would not improve any of them.

Kanno arrived still in work clothes, her black bag over one shoulder and no laptop. She accepted tea, declined food because she had eaten on the way, and settled at the dining table. For a few minutes she asked about Coach 1 instead. Isha explained that the first day included taught material and practical coaching exercises, with much of the point being how to coach bodies unlike her own instead of simply demonstrating what she could do.

Kanno looked at Thomas. "Has she accepted this?" Thomas answered, "Intellectually." Isha reminded both of them that she was sitting there. The familiar irritation in her voice loosened something in Kanno's shoulders; she turned her cup until the handle came back to where it had started and stopped rehearsing the opening she had brought with her.

"I want to ask about Aelira and Lethira. Aelira and I both want another meeting. I'd like to see Lethira again too, if she wanted that. I know I don't need your permission to speak to people who can answer for themselves. That's not the question." Kanno paused, then abandoned whatever cleaner phrasing she had prepared. "I want to know whether you're actually all right with it. With me continuing to see them."

Thomas had an immediate answer and distrusted it because it was too easy. *They're your friendships* was true, but Kanno had not come over after work to ask whether he owned other people. She wanted to know what those friendships did to him and Isha.

"Yes," he said after a moment. "I think I am. I may find it strange sometimes. Aelira was part of my life for years. Lethira too. If you see one of them and come here the next day, there will probably be moments when I want to ask what you talked about. That doesn't make it mine to ask for. What I don't want is you becoming the easy route between us—leaving a meeting wondering what you're supposed to report, or turning up there carrying news about us because it feels useful."

Kanno said that was already how she wanted it. Thomas picked up his cup again. "Then I think we're fine. If you want to tell us something because it's yours to tell, tell us. If one of them deliberately sends something through you, that's different. Otherwise you get to have a conversation we don't receive afterwards."

Isha had listened without interrupting. One leg was folded beneath her chair; her left hand rested on her knee, the wedding ring catching the room light whenever she shifted. When Kanno turned towards her, she did not answer immediately.

"It is different for me. I don't want you to stop. When you told us you'd met Lethira, I was happy. Yesterday, when you told us the same about Aelira, I was happy again. They are people I love, and you are my friend. I like that you can know each other without me arranging it." Her gaze dropped to the table. "But every time you say one of their names after seeing them, part of me wants all the small things. What they wore. Whether they looked tired. Whether Lethira laughed. What Aelira chose to drink. Things that don't matter until I realise I can't see them for myself."

Kanno's expression softened. Isha saw it and continued before sympathy could make the answer easier. "I don't want my missing them to decide who you can know. I also can't tell you it never affects me. It does."

Kanno let the admission sit for a while before asking whether Isha would prefer future meetings to go unmentioned. Isha shook her head. If Kanno wanted to tell her that she had seen them and it had been good, she would rather know. What she wanted to avoid was treating the rest as something owed to her.

Thomas reached across the corner of the table. Isha turned her hand into his and held it there. The original question had been answered.

Thomas noticed before Isha did that Kanno had made no move towards her bag. "There's another part," he said. Kanno looked faintly annoyed at being read so easily before asking, "Would either of you ever want to be included? Not another reunion. Something smaller. If I was going to meet Aelira again, or Lethira, would you ever want me to ask whether one of you could come too?"

March had been built around return. Family, old friends and years of absence had filled separate rooms with conversations nobody could make casual. Kanno was describing something smaller: people meeting again because one afternoon together sounded pleasant.

Thomas found that he liked the possibility better once it was no longer called a reunion. "Sometimes, perhaps. I don't want every meeting you have with them to become ours because you happen to know us, and I don't think I want to take every possible chance to see someone from there. But I don't mean never."

Isha had gone quiet again. When she finally spoke, the answer seemed to surprise her as much as anyone else. "I would like to see Aelira again. And Lethira. I thought the reunion would be enough for a long time. Maybe it was enough for what it was. This feels different."

Kanno asked whether she meant together or separately. Isha sat back, one arm resting loosely across herself, and let the two possibilities settle.

"Together, perhaps. I think it might be less like trying to recover one old relationship at a time." She looked at Kanno. "You know both of them now. They know you without me there. I would like to see what happens if the four of us spend an afternoon together."

Kanno was quiet for long enough that Isha raised an eyebrow. "I'm deciding whether I object to the phrase *you know both of them now*."

Isha accepted the objection. Kanno considered the group more concretely. Her meeting with Lethira had found one shape; Aelira's had found another. Putting both women in the same place with Isha would change the balance immediately, and Kanno would be the only person there who had never lived in the fantasy world. None of that made her want it less.

Kanno settled on the answer. "I think I'd like it. If they would." Thomas looked between them and asked whether he was being elegantly excluded. "You can come," Kanno said. "I asked whether either of you wanted to be included. I did not establish a women's committee while you were folding socks."

Thomas said he disliked discovering committees after the terms of reference had already been written. The humour passed, leaving him with a decision he had not expected to make that evening. Aelira mattered enormously to him. So did Lethira. He could imagine an afternoon with either of them and knew there would be some regret if an opportunity passed while he stayed home. He could also imagine how quickly his own history would alter the room.

"I think not this one," he said. "If there is one. I would like to see them again sometime, but I don't need to be in the first small thing you try."

Isha studied him until he assured her he was sure, adding that he would probably be jealous for ten minutes afterwards and ask whether Aelira had insulted him. He could survive that. Isha leaned against his shoulder for a few seconds, then looked back to Kanno.

"Then I would like to go. If they want me there." Kanno wanted the meeting neutral, and Isha agreed at once. "I don't want the question to become whether anyone visits either world."

They had used neutral places before. This one only needed enough room for people to choose what to do with an afternoon. Isha wanted somewhere they could walk and sit outside. Trees would be good. Kanno accused her of designing it already; Isha admitted to doing so only slightly.

Thomas listened while the idea acquired a few edges: a neutral place, open space, somewhere comfortable to sit, perhaps tea or coffee, no formal agenda. Kanno considered the camera and discarded it. Aelira had permitted her to bring it to a future one-to-one meeting; that permission did not automatically belong to a different gathering, and Lethira had made no current choice about a camera.

"Leave it home," Kanno decided. "If there is ever a reason to bring it, I can ask the people who would actually be there."

Isha agreed. Thomas checked the clock and discovered that Kanno's half-hour visit had nearly doubled. Isha's alarm would go early, and the remaining problem was one they could not solve among themselves.

"None of us can invite Aelira or Lethira," he said.

Kanno looked at the phone beside her cup. The nameless four-person chat with Ian was still there. It could carry a question; it was not a doorway, and no old doorway remained available merely because it had once worked. Aelira and Lethira would still have to be asked. They could refuse, change the group or dislike the idea entirely.

Kanno unlocked her phone. "I can ask him to ask them."

Isha drew the phone a few centimetres closer with one finger so she could see the screen. "Make it clear we're asking whether they want it."

Kanno gave her a look and began typing. Thomas collected the empty cups while she worked, asking only that she mention his absence was deliberate before Ian decided it was a logistical defect. Her first version sounded like an event booking. The second made Isha's wish resemble a request for another reunion. She deleted both. On the third attempt she stopped trying to make it elegant and turned the screen towards Thomas and Isha.

**Ian. We have a question, not a request for an immediate arrangement. Isha and I would like to know whether Aelira and Lethira might be interested in a small neutral meeting with us sometime. Thomas is deliberately sitting this one out, though he may want to see them another time. We were thinking somewhere neutral with room to walk and sit, belonging to neither world. No camera. Would you be willing to ask Aelira and Lethira whether they would want that, and bring their answers back to us without improving the idea for them?**

Isha read it twice, then nodded. Thomas read it from behind Kanno's shoulder and agreed. Kanno pressed send.

The reply came while Thomas was still rinsing the cups.

> "I will ask them. I am unsure on what frequency makes sense, but I am happy with a meeting at least. There are some .. temporal .. challenges that get more difficult, the more often people meet, even if in a constructed space. But I also want to help, without making things worse."

Kanno read it once, then again more slowly. The word *temporal* held her longer than the rest. Ian had not given them a theory; he had given them a reason not to turn one proposed afternoon into a recurring arrangement before it existed.

Thomas dried his hands and read the message himself. "He doesn't say what the challenges are." Kanno agreed that he did not. The old temptation to turn uncertainty into a mechanism discussion barely got started. Isha did not know what frequency she wanted anyway. She wanted this meeting, if Aelira and Lethira wanted it as well, and preferred to discover what came after by actually having it. Kanno felt the same. "I don't want a standing appointment."

Thomas pulled his chair out again. "And if Ian is telling us repeated meetings create a problem, we should probably not respond by creating a calendar."

Kanno picked up the phone. Their earlier message already said *sometime*, but Ian's answer had opened a future question none of them had meant to settle that night. She wrote the narrower answer instead.

**One meeting is enough. We aren't asking for a recurring arrangement, and none of us knows yet whether we would want one. Please ask Aelira and Lethira about this meeting only. If they want it, we can work out the conditions for this occasion and leave everything after that undecided.**

Isha and Thomas read it, and Kanno sent it. On the other world, Ian was beside Lethira. His phone appeared from nowhere in his hand; in the brief switch, he asked her directly and showed her the Earth-side messages.

Lethira took the phone carefully and read from the beginning. Kanno and Isha wanted to see her and Aelira. Thomas had chosen not to attend this one. The place would belong to neither world, with room to walk and sit, and the camera would stay home. She reached Ian's concern about frequency, then Kanno's answer that one meeting was enough.

She remained quiet for a little while after reaching the bottom. "I like that." Lethira touched the edge of the phone and looked once more at Kanno's final message. "One meeting. No assumption that it becomes a custom merely because we enjoy it."

Thomas's absence pleased her too, though not because she wanted to avoid him. He had chosen to let this become something other than another piece of his return. The prospect of seeing Isha carried its own weight. Their reunion had held years of absence inside it; another afternoon could be smaller.

"Yes. I want to see Kanno again. And I would like an afternoon with Isha that doesn't have to carry the weight of being the first one after all those years."

Aelira's answer belonged to Aelira. Lethira asked Ian to approach her separately and to keep Lethira's agreement private unless Aelira specifically asked. One woman's answer should not become pressure on the other.

The proposed place needed little else. Somewhere with trees, somewhere to walk, somewhere they could sit for a long time if they wanted and leave early if they did not. The absence of a camera amused her.

"Yes, Ian. For this one meeting, if Aelira wants it too, I would like to go."

Ian replied to the Earth-side group:

> "Lethira is happy to come. I will now go ask Aelira. To elaborate on the temporal issue, I think, that Earth and this fantasy world (I really need to find out what it's called) don't seem to flow... consistently... I don't want people leaving before they arrive or anything that means I have to turn reality off and on again or something like that. Yes I'm being a bit facetious, but hopefully that gives you one real difficulty."

In flat 202, Kanno read the message aloud. Thomas stopped halfway through sitting down. The joke about turning reality off and on again would ordinarily have invited him to improve it, but the sentence before it was enough.

"Leaving before they arrive is enough explanation for me," Kanno said.

Isha was still looking at the screen. Wanting the afternoon had not changed. What had changed was the obvious cost of pretending the two local sequences could be arranged like neighbouring train timetables.

"If the clocks don't behave reliably, then frequency isn't only about whether we want to meet often. It becomes something Ian has to make safe each time."

Thomas sat at last. "Which is probably another reason not to turn this into standing access."

They already had enough experience with incompatible dates to believe the warning without demanding a numerical model. Earth had its own calendar; the fantasy world had its own local sequence; Ian stood outside both. None of that had ever produced a useful conversion ratio.

Kanno's attention returned to the parenthesis in Ian's message. "He really doesn't know what the world is called."

Isha thought about that. Kingdoms, regions and peoples had possessed names. The world itself had rarely needed one in ordinary conversation. "I never needed to call it anything else."

Kanno accepted that more easily than an invented proper noun. She also resisted asking what *inconsistent* meant numerically, how far the mismatch could go, or which clock a neutral construct inherited. None of those questions changed tonight's request.

She typed:

**Lethira saying yes makes me happy. One meeting is still enough. Please don't turn reality off and on again for us.**

Isha smiled at the last sentence and told her to send it. Kanno did.

Having told Lethira where he was going, Ian appeared outside Aelira's room and knocked.

The knock was ordinary; his presence there was not. Aelira's private rooms lay beyond several layers which should have made an unannounced arrival impossible. Wardens controlled access to the royal residential section; attendants and messengers worked farther inside; an inner passage marked the point at which court traffic gave way to the Princess's household. Anyone reaching her actual door should already have been known, announced and, where appropriate, escorted.

Ian had interacted with none of them. The nearest attendant, carrying a narrow wooden tray of folded correspondence, stopped so abruptly that one sheet slipped sideways. A warden farther down the passage turned, saw a human standing at Aelira's door, and went still. Training resumed before alarm could become chaos. Nobody drew a weapon immediately. The nearer warden moved between Ian and the door while another came quickly from the outer passage.

The second woman looked first at Ian, then at the inner warden. The inner warden gave the smallest shake of her head: she had not admitted him either.

A senior household attendant arrived next and took in the arrangement with greater economy. Ian. Door. Wardens who plainly had not let him through. No damage. No raised voice. From farther down the passage came the muted sound of somebody else being stopped before the corridor filled with everyone responsible for explaining how he had reached it.

The door opened before the corridor acquired anyone else. Aelira looked first at Ian, then at the warden standing between them, then at the second warden and the senior attendant. Her eyebrows rose. "I see."

The inner warden turned slightly towards her. "Your Highness, he was simply here."

Recognition replaced surprise on Aelira's face. "Yes. He has demonstrated an unfortunate relationship with approaches."

The warden did not appear comforted. Aelira opened the door farther and surveyed the small accumulation of household staff. "No one failed to admit him," she said. "That is important. Nor, I think, would adding another three wardens to this passage have improved matters." The distinction was technically useful and emotionally inadequate. Aelira's mouth twitched before she stepped back from the doorway and invited Ian in, then gave the corridor one more look. "Give us privacy."

There was a brief hesitation while the household reconciled privacy with the unexplained visitor who had bypassed every layer intended to prevent precisely this situation. The senior attendant inclined her head first. The wardens followed, withdrawing far enough that ordinary conversation no longer belonged to them.

Ian said, "Sorry for appearing, I am on inter-planet mail delivery duties it seems" and showed Aelira the message, but not Lethira's response.

Aelira's attention settled on the request. She read Kanno's wording carefully: Kanno and Isha asking whether she and Lethira might want a small neutral meeting; Thomas deliberately choosing not to attend this one; somewhere with room to walk and sit; no camera. She read the later clarification too, narrowing the idea to one occasion rather than any continuing arrangement.

"She has learned you," Aelira said when she reached the request that Ian bring back their answers without improving the idea for them.

She handed the phone back and crossed towards the chairs near one of the windows. "I had already hoped to see Kanno again. That part is easy."

Isha took longer. Aelira's expression softened as she considered the name.

"I would like to see Isha again too. The reunion was important. But I don't want every time I see her to require years of absence sitting in the room with us." She settled into the chair. "This sounds smaller. I think I would like smaller."

Thomas's absence earned a faint smile. Aelira would be glad to see him again another time; this invitation had come from Isha and Kanno, and she was content to let it keep that shape.

Aelira left Lethira's choice with Lethira. She also agreed that leaving the camera at home was sensible for this gathering. Her earlier permission belonged to a future meeting with Kanno under the conditions they had discussed; a different occasion could make its own choice.

"Yes. If Isha and Kanno still want it when the time comes, and Lethira wants it independently, I would go. Somewhere with trees sounds pleasant. Somewhere we can walk would be better than another room."

She glanced towards the door and added that perhaps next time the inter-planet mail service could begin one corridor farther away.

"I will try to reduce efficiency in favour of conformity, one step at a time." Ian smiled. "I shall send a missive or something to co-ordinate the times. Bye bye" He waited for Aelira's response.

Her expression suggested she considered the ambition admirable and unlikely. "Then yes. Tell Kanno and Isha I would be glad to come, provided Lethira wishes it as well."

Aelira rose. Before Ian left, she added one request of her own. "When you arrange it, leave us enough time to be bored. The reunion had purposes. Kanno and I had questions. I would quite like to discover what four women do when nobody has given the afternoon a purpose."

Her smile was small. "Goodbye, courier." Ian returned to Lethira, then messaged the group:

> "Aelira is wanting to come too. If you want, I can place some missives at your disposal for arranging the times. Message me when you want it setting up so I can get the construct right."

In flat 202, Kanno's phone vibrated again. She opened the message and turned it towards Isha. For the first time that evening, the gathering existed as something all four intended to attend. Nobody began arranging it immediately. Isha still had to get up early for Coach 1. Kanno still had work the following week. Aelira and Lethira had lives whose calendars did not conveniently belong to Sendai.

Isha reread the line about missives. "That might be better than making Ian carry every date backwards and forwards."

Thomas had returned to the laundry basket. "It would also mean the people actually going can arrange it." Kanno looked at him and observed that he was enjoying being excluded from administration. "Immensely," Thomas said.

The practical problem appealed to Kanno more than it should have. Two people on Earth could compare calendars in minutes. The other two lived somewhere whose weekdays did not map reliably onto Earth's, and Ian had just warned them against assuming otherwise. Isha ruled out the next day because of Coach 1, and Sunday might depend on how Saturday went. Neither of them wanted the meeting urgently enough to force it between commitments.

"Perhaps we should not choose an Earth date first," Isha said. "Let them tell us when they have a good afternoon, then see what Ian can safely make meet our side."

Thomas looked up from the basket. "That sounds like an excellent reason for missives." Kanno turned the phone over in her hand and asked whether Isha meant physical ones. Isha's slight smile arrived before her answer. "I would prefer that."

A message thread was convenient, but a sheet arriving from Aelira or Lethira in her own hand belonged to a different rhythm. Dates could take several exchanges. Nobody needed an instant answer. If a proposed afternoon failed, another piece of paper could arrive later.

Kanno opened the group chat and typed:

**Missives would be useful. Isha and I can coordinate our Earth availability ourselves, but it would be better if Aelira and Lethira could tell us what works for them rather than making you relay every possibility. Physical letters are fine. There is no urgency.**

She added:

**We will message you separately when the four of us have a time we actually want and you can set up the meeting then.**

Isha read it once and agreed. Kanno sent it.

A dozen missives appeared in the flat near Isha. A posh fountain pen appeared with them, for what Ian described as authentic medieval or fantasy writing.

The sheets arrived in a neat stack close enough to Isha's chair that she looked down at the sudden pale rectangle before either Thomas or Kanno had properly registered what had changed. The fountain pen lay across the top, dark-bodied and polished, its nib making the promised historical authenticity questionable by several centuries.

Isha bent and picked up the stack. Kanno took the pen when it was offered and turned it once between her fingers, examining the nib. Her phone vibrated.

> "I hope a dozen is enough, if not, I might go mad. Sign then and they'll go to whoever you want, they can reply on the back and sign likewise."

Kanno read the message aloud, then looked at the stationery. "He has invented interplanetary correspondence and imposed a twelve-letter sanity limit."

Thomas came nearer to inspect the stack. "That's healthier than unlimited stationery."

Isha separated the top sheet and laid it flat on the table. The mechanism Ian had described was simpler than the Hero-System exchange she and Thomas had lived with for years: write to the intended person, sign, and the sheet would go there; the recipient could answer on the reverse and sign it back. Nothing in the message suggested a monthly opening or a paired page already waiting on the other side.

Kanno tapped the fountain pen lightly against her palm and asked whether Isha wanted to write first. Isha looked at the empty page. She had written to Aelira before through the Hero System, but this note existed for the mundane purpose of finding an afternoon to spend together. "Yes. But to both of them."

Kanno handed her the pen. Isha uncapped it, tested the weight and lowered the nib, then stopped after the first few words and frowned. "This is not medieval." Kanno held her expression for perhaps a second before agreeing. Thomas, sitting down again, asked them not to tell Ian because he would send a quill next. Isha said she did not want a quill. "Then protect the illusion," Thomas replied.

Isha returned to the page. She wrote in English because Kanno needed to participate in the correspondence directly. She did not repeat an invitation that had already been accepted. Instead she explained that Coach 1 occupied her weekend, Kanno had work, and neither of them needed the meeting immediately. Aelira and Lethira could offer several afternoons that were comfortable on their side, leaving Ian to say which could be matched safely to Earth-side availability.

She added that somewhere with trees and room to walk still sounded good. Tea would be welcome. Food could wait. Halfway through she crossed out a sentence that sounded too much like organising an appointment.

When she finished, she signed her name and slid the page towards Kanno. "Add yours."

Kanno read what Isha had written before taking the pen. She added a shorter paragraph saying that her working week was flexible enough to accommodate several possibilities with some notice and that she agreed there was no urgency. She signed beneath Isha.

For a moment the paper remained exactly where it was. Thomas looked at it and asked, "Who are you sending it to?"

Isha considered. The mechanism required an intended person, and there were two women on the other side of the proposed meeting. "Aelira first. She can reply, then perhaps send it to Lethira? No. That makes her responsible for carrying it."

Kanno nodded. "Use two." The abundance of stationery made that solution easy. They copied the practical information onto a second sheet, though not word for word. Isha addressed one to Aelira and one to Lethira, leaving each woman free to answer. Kanno signed both after adding her own short note about availability.

When the second signature was complete, the first missive disappeared. The second followed a few seconds later. There was no flash and no door. Paper occupied the dining table, then did not.

Thomas looked at the empty spaces and said it was going to remain unsettling. Isha capped the fountain pen. "Useful, though." Thomas reminded her that the two were not opposites.

Kanno examined the pen again with the concentration she normally reserved for cameras, prints and objects whose manufacture mattered. Thomas glanced at Ian's message and said they had at least ten letters left before Ian went mad. Kanno decided civilisation apparently had a stationery budget.

Isha carried the remaining sheets towards the flexible room, stopped halfway, then returned to the dining table and placed them in one of its shallow drawers instead. The fountain pen went beside them.

The replies did not come back immediately. On the fantasy side, Lethira's sheet appeared while Ian was still with her. She read Isha's longer note and Kanno's addition beneath it, then turned the page over and considered the next few local days. The meeting itself was an easy yes; she was less willing to promise an afternoon before the other things immediately ahead of her had been given their proper time.

Her answer stayed practical:

**Isha, Kanno. I am glad you asked. Tomorrow is poor for me. After that, I can make either of the following two afternoons free if one can be made to meet your side safely. Trees and somewhere to walk still sound good. Tea too. I would rather have enough time that nobody has to leave just when the conversation becomes interesting. Lethira.**

She read it once and signed; the sheet vanished. Aelira took longer. Ian's arrival outside her rooms had left a small wake of household business behind it, and she dealt with that before returning to the letter. Her own calendar offered less room for improvisation than Lethira's, although the request itself pleased her.

She turned the page over and wrote:

**Isha, Kanno. Yes. Tomorrow is poor for me as well. The following afternoon can be made free, and the afternoon after that is easier. If neither is useful, send another sheet instead of forcing the first attempt. I agree about trees and walking. Please do not arrange anything ceremonial on my account. I have attended enough ceremonies to know that they rarely improve tea. Aelira Caelithen.**

Her signature sent the second sheet on its way. In flat 202, Lethira's reply returned within the hour, appearing on the dining table where the original sheet had disappeared. Kanno was still there; her promised half-hour visit had already stretched beyond usefulness as a measure of anything. Isha recognised Lethira's name first and read the answer slowly before passing it across.

Kanno lingered over the line about conversation becoming interesting. "That's a dangerous scheduling principle."

Isha disagreed, though she had already stopped herself reaching for her calendar. Another reply was outstanding, and Saturday morning's Coach 1 start mattered more than squeezing four people's availability into the rest of Friday night.

Thomas read the page when Kanno offered it. "At least she hasn't asked us to define what an afternoon means between worlds."

Kanno told him not to say that anywhere Ian might hear. Thomas smiled without attempting to improve the joke.

Aelira's sheet came back later in the evening. Isha picked it up as soon as it appeared, and the full signature at the bottom held her attention for a moment after she finished reading. The phrase *can be made free* was familiar in a way the rest of the arrangement was not. Aelira could make room for them; the room had not been empty beforehand.

Kanno read next and gave a quiet snort at the final sentence. "I support her position on ceremonial tea."

Thomas observed from farther down the room that she had taken tea with Aelira exactly once. Kanno considered that entirely adequate evidence.

Between the two replies, there was already useful overlap on the fantasy side. Lethira had offered either of the two afternoons after tomorrow; Aelira could manage the first and preferred the second. Nobody in flat 202 tried to translate either into an Earth date. They had already agreed to leave that matching step until they went back to Ian.

Isha folded the returned sheets together loosely. "I want to finish the course weekend first. I'm not changing my mind about seeing them. I just don't want tomorrow divided between Coach 1 and thinking about when I have to leave for this."

Kanno's own schedule could tolerate more movement, but there was no reason to make it the governing constraint. She suggested they compare Earth availability on Sunday evening, once Isha knew how the course weekend had actually felt, then give Ian two or three times they would genuinely be happy with. He could tell them whether any of those could meet the fantasy-side window safely.

Thomas listened without joining the scheduling. That was what he had chosen. He still found himself looking at Aelira's handwriting when Isha put the pages beside the unused missives. Isha noticed and left the look alone.

A few minutes later Kanno stood to leave. At the genkan she checked the plan once more: Sunday evening, after Coach 1, no attempt to arrange the meeting before then.

Isha agreed and saw her out. The two replies stayed in the dining-table drawer with the remaining missives and Ian's absurdly elegant fountain pen.