He felt the cup getting colder and colder in his hands, and he started to think he might have gone to the wrong place. Tapping the table, he tried to decide who would be the worst possible partner. He and Gandash were in a rough spot, but they were still best friends from childhood. If he walked through the door, Xerxes would feel relieved. In terms of other students, there weren’t any he hated, and none that hated him, as far as he knew.

The shop’s door opened, and someone stepped in wearing everyday clothing.

A woman, based on the shape of her legs.

She had a deep-hooded cloak hiding her face as she let the door closed and then looked around the room.

He could tell when her eyes came to rest on him. Then she raised her hand slightly and waved. He lifted his fingers to return the greeting. So, this was his partner. There were a few people he could rule out, such as the stick-thin Ningal or Dasi with all her ear and nose rings, which clinked when she walked.

Keeping her hood up, the woman walked to the counter and spoke with the shopowner in low tones. Then, a cup of coffee in hand, she slid into the booth across from Xerxes.

As she did, the lamplight touched her face, and his heart nearly stopped beating at the sight of her red hair.

No. Way. It took effort, but he kept his jaw from slamming onto the tabletop below.

“Hi, Xerk,” Katayoun said. “I could hardly stop from coming over and talking to you about this mission for the past two weeks. Can you believe they picked us?”

“Er… um….” He couldn’t even form coherent words.

She looked at him through the steam from the coffee cup. “You okay?”

He lifted his ice-cold coffee, took a sip, and barely managed not to blanch from the bitterness. “I’m fine,” he said.

“You look… off.”

“No, I’m really okay. I just… er, so we’re together now.” Together? he thought, trying hard not to cringe.

“They didn’t tell you?”

Feeling a bit more comfortable now that words were coming out of his mouth, he said, “I didn’t ask. I was so surprised by the assignment itself that I didn’t think about it. In fact, I didn’t ask any questions at all. This whole time, I’ve been wondering who I’d be working with. I was hoping it would be you.”

She tilted her head to the side, and in the darkness of her hood, he could see her smiling. “Oh? What do you mean?”

“J-just that…” he stammered, realizing how weird it must have sounded. “I mean… we’re both from Black Jackal, you know, so we’re kind of… the same classroom is good—”

She laughed. “I get it.”

He took another sip of disgusting coffee just to have a reason not to talk.

“Do you know why they picked you?” she asked.

“Oh, yeah.”

She looked at him expectantly.

You idiot, he cursed himself. “Back on Mannemid, that’s where I come from, but you know that already, anyway, back there during the Abhorrent invasion, I fought some cultists. I mean, more than just fought. I killed one. She was a High Seer.”

Katayoun’s eyes widened. “You killed a High Seer cultist? That’s pretty amazing.”

His mouth twitched into a grin. “Well, yeah.” He decided not to explain that he’d cut her down from behind when she was distracted. Instead, he continued, “What about you? I mean, I didn’t even ask who my partner was, much less why they picked you.”

She reached up as if to tuck her hair behind her ear, except her hand ran into the hood. She put her hand back to her coffee cup. “It’s complicated,” she said. “But basically, I know a bit about the cult. I had… a family member who was in it. My brother, actually. It didn’t turn out well for him. And because of that—” her tone hardened “—I hate them. A lot. That’s why they picked me. Also, I know some of the terminology and whatnot.”

“Oh. That’s… well, I’m sorry to hear that.”

“It’s fine.”

After that, there was a silence that Xerxes dreaded was going to turn awkward. So he said, “Anyway, should we talk about the mission?”

“Sure.” Reaching into her cloak, she pulled out a leather tube similar to his, popped it open, and pulled out the flyer, which she spread out on the table in front of them. “The actual recruitment meeting is next week. Today we’re just supposed to get our story straight.”

“Our story?”

She looked up from the flyer. “You know. Why we’re going to the meeting? Why we’re going together?”

He felt like a complete idiot, and in fact, was concerned that his brain wasn’t working at all. “Oh, that. Yeah, I’ve been thinking about that.”

“Really? You have some good ideas?”

“I guess. What about you?” He wasn’t lying. He’d assumed their cover story would be that they both happened to find a flyer at the same time, and had been talking about it since.

“Well,” she said, “I was thinking of saying that my friend Kishar found the flyer and showed it to me. It caught my attention. Then you and I got assigned to the same squad for practical training.” That part was essentially true. “Then I ‘accidentally’ mention to you that I had a family member in the cult. You and I started talking about it, and we agreed we wanted to check it out together.”

“Hunh,” he said. “That sounds reasonable.”

“Right? I mean, the most obvious cover story would be that we’re boyfriend and girlfriend. But that would be a tough act to maintain. After all, it’s not like you like me or something. Right?”

She was looking right at him. He looked back.

This was the closest he’d ever been to her. So close that, if he wanted to, he could reach out and touch her.

It’s not like you like me or something. Right?

How was he supposed to answer that? What answer did she want? Was she expecting him to say that he didn’t like her? The truth was that he liked her so much that he wanted to lean across the table and kiss her.

But he couldn’t say that, could he? He couldn’t just outright reveal what he was really thinking?

He took a deep breath and opened his mouth to respond.