“Pro—pro—pro—Professor?!” Her voice fluttered like a sparrow startled from a hedge.

Selina straightened without thinking; her lush lashes flickered, and panic flooded her chest like a sudden squall.

Her mouth turned to sand; tension galloped.

A twitch in her diaphragm kicked up through her throat, and her cords rattled into quick, clipped hics.

“Don’t tense up,” Hedi gave an awkward smile, crumbs on her thumb like pale grains. “I just wanted to wipe the corner of your mouth.”

“Th—hic... hic... at’s it.”

The hiccups hadn’t stopped.

They popped like bubbles in a boiling kettle.

Selina tried to swallow.

It somehow made it worse.

Her throat snagged like a knot in rope; her breath scattered like loose leaves.

Hedi thought, a rueful sigh curling like steam.

I only meant to tease her for blushing over the mouth-to-mouth; I didn’t expect a reaction like a breaking dam.

Hedi set a hand on Selina’s back.

Her palm rested like a warm leaf.

Now and then she patted, light as drizzle.

“How do you feel?”

“Mu—much better.”

“Sorry.”

“It’s not the Professor’s fault. I hiccup when nerves swarm like bees.”

“Residents of the Shattered City and roaches of the Dark Realm couldn’t rattle you, yet this unremarkable Professor knocks your heart askew like wind tipping a paper kite?”

“It’s too easy to misread, and you suddenly touched my lips… right after doing that thing, like a match near dry straw.”

“Mouth-to-mouth?”

“Hic.”

“Okay, okay, I won’t say it.”

Hedi took a careful look at Selina’s slightly lean face.

Her eyes were graceful, her pupils bright and smooth like wet obsidian.

Her lashes were long, moth wings that might brush her cheekbones when they lowered.

Her nose arched high; her lips were small yet finely carved.

“Isn’t that odd?”

“I wasn’t thinking anything; my head was blank as a white page. I don’t know what’s odd.”

Selina folded forward, slow as a leaf drifting down.

Her legs bent into a small triangle.

Her arms swept from each side to clasp the other, hugging her shins tight.

She pressed her face to her knees and murmured, hesitant as dew on grass:

“About the nervous hiccups…”

“If there’s anything strange, when I get nervous I bite my thumb—sometimes the nail, sometimes the flesh,” Hedi said. “When pain blooms in my thumb, I feel oddly soothed.”

She slid her thumb into her mouth. “See? Just a gentle bite, like testing a peach.”

“What if you bite hard?”

“It hurts, you idiot! I’m easing pressure, not broken in the head.”

“That’s special.”

“So hiccups aren’t strange at all.”

“Mm… I want to sleep.” Selina sent Hedi a questioning look, a moon behind thin cloud.

Hedi didn’t speak; her eyes held no ripple, her face was steady as still water.

So Selina asked, nerves tight as a bowstring, “Can I?”

“If you want to sleep, sleep.”

“Professor won’t sleep?”

“I already slept. Besides, you’ve been running so long; you should rest.”

“It didn’t really count as sleep; your heartbeat even stopped.”

“It’s fine. Sleep.”

“Then—” Selina shifted, and hugged Hedi from behind. “I need to hold something to fall asleep, like a talisman.”

In the eerie, heavy air of the Dark Realm, does she crave another’s company?

After a pause, Hedi agreed: “Go on, treat me like a teddy bear.”

Selina didn’t answer.

Hedi eased her body sideways.

With Selina holding her, they tipped to the right, and settled on the carpet, sleeping on their sides like two reeds leaning together.

Through her back, she felt the rise and fall of Selina’s chest, steady as a tide.

Warm breath brushed her neck, a small south wind.

The carpet’s uneven dust pricked her nose like sand.

Hedi swallowed a cough and let out only a faint sound, so she wouldn’t disturb the sleeping Selina.

Strange to think it—wonder washed over her like moonlight—that she could be this close to someone.

Across the old world and this one—almost forty years—it was a first.

More than gratitude for a saved life, it was reliance, a vine finding a wall.

Hedi quietly squeezed Selina’s hand; her palm was warm and soft, like warm silk.

Time slipped by in silence, like snow falling.

Hedi moved her fingers and fished a pocket watch from her coat.

13:14.

She’d forgotten the last time she’d checked; only the hours and minutes back in the Shattered City clung like a shadow.

“Such an old model,” Selina said suddenly. “I didn’t expect you to like vintage things.”

“Did I wake you?”

“You can’t sleep deep here.”

Hedi tucked the watch back into her pocket. “It’s a decade out of date.”

“Why not change to a new one?”

“It carries a memory, but it should be replaced. We don’t have the parts to fix it now.”

“A very important person gave it?”

“The Priest who adopted me.”

“You’re so famous now; he’d be proud.”

“Maybe. But if he knew I’d entered the Dark Realm, he’d come down on me like thunder splitting a tree.”

“It’s all on me.” Selina hugged Hedi tight, a child clutching a lantern. “If I hadn’t kept you from leaving the Shattered City—”

“No one could stop me from leaving. I chose to stay, like anchoring a boat.”

“Really?”

“We were dragged in, remember?”

“Mm… I don’t know how the guard is. He said he’d go to the institute to get reinforcements.”

Silence seeped in like fog.

She had kept quiet to spare Selina fear—the guard’s body had begun to change.

He strove to set himself apart from the Shattered City’s residents, proof that he was born human, not a monster.

Now, with no more scruples, she could speak.

“When I checked the guard’s wounds—” Hedi said, her voice halting like an uneven road. “They were bad. Very bad.”

“Weren’t they healed?”

“I only know simple healing.”

“You mean the guard might have died, chased by the residents like a stag by hounds?”

“If it meant stopping the residents from leaving… knowing him, he’d stand and stop them.”

“Why didn’t you tell me then? You both knew it?”

“In a way.”

“In a way,” Selina echoed, like a magpie copying a call.

“The guard’s orders were to hold the Shattered City to the death—”

“Got it.” Selina buried her face in Hedi’s neck, a cat finding a warm crook. “Good thing you didn’t keep hiding it. If I’d had to find the truth on my own, I’d glare at you with the most resentful eyes, every day, every night, every single moment!”

“Just imagining that is terrifying.”

“That’s what happens to people who lie to me.”

“But don’t lose hope. I’m not a med student. I just laid out the facts from what I saw.”

“Only the wounds?”

“What else are you hoping for?”

“I replayed your talk with him; something felt off.”

“You remember well. I’ve forgotten most of it.”

“He was the only one in the city not infected, and the one who drove the beasts out, alone?”

“How would I know?”

“Feels like he lied to you. He was infected too, and told no one.”

“If he were infected, the Dark Realm would cloud him. So stop spiraling.” Hedi lifted Selina’s arm off her and sat up slow, like a carp rising. “Rested up? We need to keep looking for a way out.”

“Where?”

“Deeper along the path the Investigator was staring at. It keeps tugging at me.”

“What if we hit roaches?”

“I’ll use—”

“No. If you use anything recklessly, I’ll drop you right there like a stone.”