“Stop,” I said, because I could hear the rest of that sentence echoing in my head. Fight from handing myself over to the Mists.

Naji leaned up against the bedpost like he was trying to catch his breath. He peered up at me through the tangle of his hair. I could hardly breathe: I kept thinking about the moments I felt warmth from him when he was with me. Happiness. Comfort.

“When you shared your blood, it created intimacy,” he said. “And the magic joined us together. It was like sex–”

His voice trailed off.

I glared at him, humiliated. “Wouldn’t know,” I snapped. “I figured the boon out before we let it get that far, remember?”

He stared at me, his mouth open like he wanted to say something. I could feel his thoughts, his emotions, crowding at the gates of my mind, but now that I knew what they were I shoved them away. I didn’t need him inside my head.

“That wasn’t my fault,” Naji said.

I turned away from him, still flush with embarrassment. He was right, of course, but I wasn’t gonna let him know that.

“Maybe you should leave.” I glanced at him over my shoulder. “I’m not sure I want to talk to you right now.”

“The boon wasn’t my fault,” Naji said. “But you were going to turn me over to the Otherworld. That was your choice.” He looked sad, even though his words slashed at me like they were full of rage. I wasn’t going to let him know I felt guilty about that, either.

“I was only thinking about it,” I said. “She raises some good points.”

His mouth hardened.

“I asked you to leave and you’re still here.”

He stood up. Grabbed his sword. But he didn’t leave. He came and stood real close to me. The exact opposite of leaving.

“They lie,” he said. “When they try to strike deals. You’ll be in thrall to them, if you help them, if you–”

“I ain’t gonna help ’em!” I shoved him away. “Get out of my room. And stay out of my head!”

“I’m not in your head,” he said. “You’ve blocked me.”

“Seems fair, given how I can’t get in your head.”

Naji gave me a long look. “Yes, you can,” he said. I knew he was right. “You’ve been doing it all this time. You just don’t seem to want to control it.”

Anger flashed white-hot behind my eyes. “Don’t tell me what I don’t want to do!” I swung my fist at him, sloppy with rage. He caught my arm, and at his touch I saw a flash of that night after the manticore’s feast, only it wasn’t me looking up Naji, it was Naji looking down at me, his thoughts flushed with desire and… and affection.

I yanked away from him.

“There,” he said. “You went inside my head.”

I turned away from him, sucking in deep breaths. That desire, that affection – that wasn’t from the boon. I felt it. It was from him.

“I know about the starstones,” Naji said. “I know about your conversation with Jeric yi Niru.” A pause. “I know you… worried.”

“Oh, shut up!” I jerked away from him. “I did not.”

Naji watched me.

“I have to try,” he went on. “With the starstones. I’ve been communicating with the Order. I have to try–”

“Of course you have to try,” I said. “It’s the only way I’m going to get rid of you.”

He recoiled, and something flashed across his face that I couldn’t identify. I didn’t bother peeking to see what it was; it might have been hurt. But then his eyes narrowed and he said, “You’re never going to get rid of me. Not as long as your blood flows through my veins.”

I scowled. “Get out of my room.”

“I’m only warning you.”

“Get out!”

“If you try to call down the Otherworld,” he said, his voice low and dangerous. “I’ll know. Don’t ever forget that.”

“For Kaol’s sake, Naji, I ain’t gonna call down the Otherworld. I just want you to leave me alone!” I whipped my knife at him without thinking. He slid away in a blink. The knife thrummed into the wall.

“That was unnecessary,” he said.

“Get out.”

He gave me one last hard cold look before melting into the shadows. I leaned up against the wall and dug the heels of my hand into my eyes, trying to stop the tears from flowing over my cheeks, and failing. I concentrated, trying to see if I could feel him hiding in the room, if I could slip into his thoughts the way I did earlier. But there was only emptiness, a blank space where he’d been.

I let out a deep breath, and I realized I was shaking.

The sun room was filled with the orange and pink light of the sunset by the time I dragged myself up there for dinner. The windows were all open-air and gauzed with fine white netting. Flowering vines traced along the walls, growing out of carved stone pots. There was a table in the center of the room stacked high with food: charred meats and fresh fruits and crusty fried breads, along with more bottles of that sweet sugar wine.

Marjani and Naji were waiting for me when we walked in, but there was no Queen Saida yet. Naji sat up straight in his chair and didn’t look at me. Marjani seemed distracted.

I sat down at the table and poured a glass of wine.

“You shouldn’t start yet,” Naji said. I glared at him.

“This isn’t a formal feast,” Marjani said. “It’s dinner. She can have a glass of wine if she wants.”

Naji gave her one of his looks, but she didn’t notice, just kept staring at the door. I drank my wine down, poured another glass.

We hadn’t been waiting long when a pair of guards marched into the room, and then another pair, and then Queen Saida, fluttering behind them like a flower. Her attendants weren’t anywhere to be seen, but I guess she couldn’t ditch her guards that easily. She smiled at each of us in turn and then sat down at the head of the table and plucked a mango slice off a nearby platter.

“Eat,” she said cheerfully. “The cooks have been slaving away since this morning, I’m sure. I’d hate to tell them their efforts were wasted.”

Didn’t have to tell me twice. I scooped up a big pile of carrot salad and a lamb chop and took to eating. It wasn’t quite like carrot salad in the Empire – they used some different sort of spice I didn’t recognize – but it was still delicious.

For the first part of dinner, Queen Saida asked me and Naji a bunch of polite questions about our “journey”, like we’d been onboard some passenger liner and not a pirate ship. She asked about the manticores like they were Empire nobility. When I told her about the Isle of the Sky, she sat there with her pretty head leaning to the side, her eyes on me the whole time I was speaking. I was halfway through talking about drying out the caribou meat when I realized I’d just spilled half my life story to this beautiful woman.

I took a big bite of lamb to shut myself up.

“And you, Naji of the Jadorr’a,” said Queen Saida. “How did you come to know so much about… what was it called, caribou? Caribou preservation?”

Naji took a drink of wine. “I had a different life before I joined the Order.”

“Of course.” Another polite smile. I frowned. She was just so easy to trust.

I snuck a glance at Marjani. She’d stuck a lamb chop on her plate and pulled some of the meat away from the bone, but I could tell she hadn’t eaten hardly any of it. She kept her eyes on Queen Saida the whole time, following the movement of the queen’s graceful hand as she lifted spoonfuls of cream pudding to her mouth.

I wondered if Marjani was ever gonna ask about the starstones. Probably not. Probably Queen Saida didn’t even have them, Marjani just wanted to come see her now that she had a ship and a crew that’d listen to her–

Queen Saida set her spoon down beside her plate.

“Alright,” she said. “What is it?”

“What is what?” asked Marjani, though she flinched.

Queen Saida smiled. “You’ve been coy all day, dearest. You want to ask me something.”

Naji took a long drink of wine. His face had turned stony.

“I don’t know how you do that,” Marjani said. Her expression was serious and concerned, but her eyes lit up like she thought it was funny.