Maisie inhaled once. I heard it because I was listening too closely to her and not closely enough to anything else.
“From Earth?” she asked.
“Yes,” Lorkin said. His voice was gentler than usual. That made it worse. “Because of the complaint and because Maisie already had a flag on her file. They’ll inspect the match and decide whether the trial arrangement is in good standing before they rule on James’s claim.”
It was bad enough, but he kept talking.
“If they find evidence that the two of you violated any of the terms of the contract,” he said, “there won’t be a hearing. She’ll be deported immediately. Same day.”
My hands closed around air.
There was no throat to put them around. That was the problem. The hunter was gone. James was off-world. The auditor was still in transit. The Agency was a system, and systems didn’t bleed when you hit them.
Maisie’s scent was on my skin. Mine was on hers. There were marks at her throat that hadn’t been there yesterday. The bed was proof. The kitchen was proof. My shirt on her body was proof.
One night.
We’d had one night, and now it was a weapon pointed at her.
“So we keep it quiet,” Maisie said.
I turned to her.
The fear was still there, but she had moved past it. I’d seen that look once before, when she’d stood in the cidery with a bleeding hand and more courage than sense. She was doing her sums again, but this time she wasn’t subtracting herself.
“It’s just two weeks,” she said. “We make the trial look like a trial. I sleep in the guest room. We keep our hands to ourselves” Her eyes flicked down to the flannel, and she grimaced. “I stop wearing your clothes. We don’t touch where anyone can see. We’re polite. Careful. Nothing more.”
“No.” The word came out before I’d decided to say it.
Maisie looked at me. “Kazan.”
“No.”
“It’s the only way.”
“I won’t have you acting trapped in my house.”
“I’m not trapped. I’m choosing it.”
“That doesn’t make me like it.”
“I don’t need you to like it. I need you to help me stay.”
That stopped me. She knew it, too. I saw it in her face. She’d found the argument I couldn’t refuse.
Lorkin made a low sound. “She’s right.”
I looked at him.
He didn’t apologize. “She is. It’s only two weeks. You both act like the paperwork says you are.” His gaze shifted to Maisie. “Can you do that?”
Her mouth twisted. “Pretend I don’t want what I want so a man with power over me doesn’t use it against me? Yes. I have experience.”
I did not like the calm way she said that.
Lorkin didn’t either. Something in his expression changed. Not pity. He was too blunt for that. But there was respect there now, reluctant and real.
He turned back to me. “I’ll keep watch in town. If anything else comes through the Agency, I’ll know.” He started for the door, then stopped with his hand on the frame.
