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she needed to shout. Sometimes she didn’t think she could keep it all in. It simmered under her skin, pushing outward until her body no longer felt like her own.
    She’d need to keep it there. Maart wasn’t the right person to shout at.
    â€œI’m sorry.” Amara walked over and lowered herself to her haunches. She reached for the side of Maart’s neck. Her fingers ran over the raised skin of his servant tattoo, identical to hers but for the different palace sigil in the center. That was her answer. People would recognize those tattoos anywhere they ran, if they didn’t recognize their signing first. They’d deliver her and Maart to the nearest minister, who would punish or kill them for abandoning their duties—and if anyone realized Amara and Maart had betrayed the new regime by protecting the princess, they’d be just as dead, but their executioners would put a lot more thought into how.
    Given Amara’s healing, they’d
need
to put thought into it.
    Jorn had enchanted some of their possessions to act as anchors to let him track them. Even if they ran fast enough to escape the anchors’ reach, they’d have no food and no shelter and no way to get the money needed for either.
    â€œIt’s not right.” Maart’s hands moved reluctantly. “Standing there, doing nothing, while Jorn—while you—” He stopped at that, jabbing at Amara’s chest.
    â€œIt’s hard to watch. I know.” Amara bet it was harder to feel. She didn’t say that, instead inching closer, balancing on the balls of her feet. “Don’t talk about running.”
    â€œJorn can’t see.”
    â€œDoesn’t matter.” Even this felt dangerous. They were too open here, too visible, with this entire wide room around them. Jorn would know. Somehow, he’d know. Maart waswide-shouldered and strong, but going up against a mage—even a mage like Jorn, who couldn’t heal—never made for a fair fight. Amara didn’t know what Jorn would do to Maart. Or Jorn might remember that he needed Maart functioning and he’d take out his anger on Amara, instead, and she didn’t—she didn’t want—
    She sucked in a breath that stuck in her throat. She didn’t want to anger Jorn. That was all.
    â€œYou can’t ignore—” Maart started.
    That only made her want to shout again. She chose the better option, rising and leaning in to smother Maart’s words with her torso. His hands stilled, turning into flat palms, still slick from the laundry water, against her ribs. As they slid across her skin, she kissed him. His lips were sticky-sweet from breakfast fruits. The older kind, overripe and dented, because that was all people like them got. They squeezed the fruits, anyway. Juice and pulp went down easier in hollow mouths.
    Her teeth nibbled Maart’s lips, Alinean-full like Cilla’s. Bless his grandfather for passing those on. Amara hid a moan as Maart’s fingers crept higher on her chest. This close, the scent of him drowned out all others.
    He smiled against her lips, and she smiled back, knotting her fingers into his topscarf. These were all the words she wanted right now.

he good thing was, when you puked often enough, you learned where in the toilet bowl to aim in order to minimize splatter.
    The bad thing was, you automatically shut your eyes in the process. In Nolan’s case, that meant switching between feeling his knees on cool tiles and acid in his throat to witnessing Amara and Maart in the alcove bed, leaving him with mental whiplash and voyeur guilt and—in short—terrible aim.
    â€œNolan?” Pat thumped a fist on the bathroom door. “You, uh, need anything?”
    Nolan wiped his mouth with too-thin toilet paper. Then he yanked off some extra sheets, slammed his hand to the roll to keep it from spinning endlessly, and wiped the toilet seat, too. “Did Mom send you