I glanced at where Lissir and Fellisse were doing some sort of complicated-looking grappling. “Yeah, he is. He’s very quick with all the fighting.”
Tador frowned, tilting his head this way and that, his lips moving silently.
I’d probably been too fast for him, so I made sure to slow down. “He’s very quick. Quick, quick.”
“Ah, quick! Yes, quick. He is Rory sentenmen?”
I nodded. “Yup. Sentenmen. Family, I guess you’d say.”
He nodded, and there was a pause while he considered what to say next.
It shouldn’t have bothered me—honestly, we’d had plenty of exchange students at my high school, and how else was anyone going to learn?—but I was never sure what a conversation with the bagua was about. Sometimes, we’d exchange three words, and then they’d bow and all but run off, only to come back later to try the same three words again.
“Lissir sentenmen or senfesmen is?” Tador eventually said, his face blank, but his eyes sort of boring into mine. That changed his entire demeanor, and I realized the guy could be pretty commanding if he wanted to be.
“Uh…you mean… Oh. He’s just sentenmen. No fesmen, nope. We’re just really good friends, and he bought me clothes for my wedding day. When I wedded—married, that is—Ink. Inkiri, you know? He’s my senfesmen, real husband material. He’s the best.”
Tador’s eyes went wide, and I immediately felt guilty. He couldn’t have picked up too much from that. I hadn’t meant to blurt at him, but I couldn’t control when I got accidentally startled and started blabbering. I wondered whether I should repeat myself, but there was a good chance I would make it worse. There was always a good chance I would make it worse.
A shadow fell over my face. “Princess.”
Bless Vergis and his sneaky timing. I only jumped a little in my chair. “Hi! Uh, can you… I was trying to explain that Lissir is sentenmen and not senfesmen, but I think maybe I overshot.”
Vergis crossed his arms. He was standing there with the sun behind him, which meant all of him looked like one solid shadow to me. “What else is fucking new.” He looked at Tador and went into a quick Lugarran explanation I couldn’t quite follow. Verbs did a lot of grammatical acrobatics in that language, and I wasn’t great at keeping track.
Tador and Vergis exchanged a few more words, and then Tador smiled at me and bowed. “Yasu end.” He did the thing normal humans like me couldn’t, where he went from sitting cross-legged to standing without using his hands to get up and rejoined the others.
Vergis groaned, and when I looked up, he stepped to the side so I got the sun directly in my face. It made me flinch and pull the sun hat farther over my face.
“He’s trying to figure out his chances with Lissir. Get up, we’re going to the roof.”
I frowned. “But I’m watching the guys. Inkiri likes me watching.”
“Your mate could probably use a morning of sparring where he doesn’t have to try his best to throw everyone so as to be the most entertaining fighter for you.”
“He doesn’t do that… He doesn’t, right?”
Vergis gave me the flattest of flat looks.
I sucked on my bottom lip and glanced at Inkiri. “Does he do that?”
Vergis sighed. “I have mini pretzels.”
I hadn’t had junk food in ages. “You do? Did you steal them?”
Vergis rolled his eyes and walked off. I blamed the way pre-apocalypse consumerism had conditioned me to respond immediately to the siren call of junk food for how quickly I jumped to my feet, jogged after him, then stopped.
“Ink!” My mate sidestepped an attack—fudge, I should’ve checked what he was doing before calling his name, but he was okay. “Uh, I’m—Vergis needs my help with something. We’ll be on the roof.”
Inkiri nodded, grinned, then did a spin-kick thing to his attacker that connected and knocked that bagu down on his ass. Yup, he was showing off for me. It was kind of hot.
I caught up with Vergis on the back stairs. “Why do you have pretzels?”
“What do you mean, why? For eating, obviously. It’s sort of a secret stash. Dad doesn’t like snacks with ‘negligible nutritional value.’ But I figure you’d make a good food crime accomplice.”
“Yeah, totally.” I hung my hat on its hook in the mudroom and followed Vergis upstairs, then up the ladder to the roof.
We’d hung out up here a few times—no drugs for me, but Vergis generally gave me the hammock, especially after Fellisse had insisted it needed a sun sail over it so delicate human me didn’t get struck down with sunstroke sickness while napping.
