It takes a few days for them to iron out the details of the plan.  Ava seems to be satisfied with her contribution and spends most of her time in the western fire forum now.  Penny sits with her, and they talk, but only when they’re alone.  Whenever Nua or I or Sloan goes in near them they stop and pretend like they weren’t.  I wonder if Abigala and I ever did anything so mysterious and annoying, and the answer is probably yes.  I’m still thinking about Abigala, almost all the time, but there’s nothing I can do, or say, at least not yet.  I’m going to ask Haywood soon, I’ve decided.  Back at the big house it was Keol who broke my silence for me, before I worked up the nerve to.  So this time it’ll be my turn.  It’ll have to be.  

It’s getting colder, even all the way down here in the tunnels.  I wonder if it snows around here, and if we’ll be able to feel it even a mile underground.  Penny brings us a blanket one night, although we don’t really need it yet, but he says we will, soon.  Also Ava decides that she wants to take a bath.

It’s a mix of rainwater and bottled water, Penny tells me as we sit in the fire forum.  We have bottled waters all around us all the time, one of Alis’ people gives them to us with every meal.  All the water that isn’t from a bottle gets filtered so it’s clean.  “You can take one bath a week, and you have to sign up for it so time slots are organized.  It’s a bit of a process.”

Nua raises his eyebrows at me from where he’s sitting curled up in an old armchair, his hands wrapped around a cracked mug of coffee.  “How long have you been here, Penny?”

Penny looks at him and smiles a little, thinking.  “Oh, how old am I now?”

“Twenty,” I say softly.  “And a few months.”

“Then about two and a half years,” he answers.  “My mother married me away when I was seventeen, and I ran away a few months after that.”

“How did you know where to go?” I ask quietly, and he shrugs.  “I didn’t.  Sloan found me, along the side of the road, almost frozen to death one night.”

“I saved his life,” says Sloan, coming into the fire forum, and I lift my head up and look at her.  “How long have you been here?”

“A few years,” she says with a shrug, flopping down next to Penny and brushing her hair out of her face.  “Five or six.”

“Wow,” says Nua softly.  Penny shrugs.  “It’s just how it is.”

“It shouldn’t be,” I say, leaning my head back and closing my eyes.  Penny snorts.  “No.  But it is.”

There’s a small commotion outside, and then a dog trots up to me, sticking its nose into my hand.  I pet its head, and then say, “You’re not Nano.”

“Chloe!” says Sloan, her eyes lighting up.  “Hi.”

She reaches out to pet the dog too, and I look at Penny.  “How many dogs do you guys have?”

“A few,” says yet another woman, coming into the fire forum.  “This is Chloe, she’s Nano’s sister and she’s Sloan’s.  Nano is Penny’s.”

“Where is Nano?” asks Penny, and the woman shrugs.  Penny says, “Oh,” and then, “Nua and Aber, this is Alicia.  Alicia, Nua and Aber.”

“Yes, I heard that Ava finally got all of her boys back,” says Alicia with a smile.  “And Sigrid tells me she’s planning something for Bayan.”

“Well, right now she’s taking a bath,” mutters Nua, and Sloan hears, and laughs.  She just looks up at Alicia, though, and says, “Have you heard anything about my wife?”

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

I furrow my eyebrows, but Alicia just shakes her head.  “Nope, good thing.”

“Your wife?” I ask in surprise, glancing at Nua, but he looks just as confused as I do.  Alicia laughs, and says, “See you later.”

Sloan sighs, leaning her head back.  “Yeah.”

“Can you explain that a little more for us?” asks Nua, and Sloan laughs a little.  “Sure.  I’m a woman.”

“Yeah,” I say.

“But for the first, oh, I don’t know, twenty years of my life, everyone treated me like a man, because of the way I looked.  So I got married to a woman, and all that.  When I got away from her, and came down here, I was able to finally live the way I wanted.”

“Oh,” says Nua softly.  “That must have been hard.”

“Yeah,” she says with a slight grin.  Chloe barks, and then puts her front paws on Sloan’s lap, and she groans.  “Oh, you’re all dirty.  She’s probably hungry,” she says to Penny, and he nods.  “See if Nano’s anywhere.”

“Alright,” says Sloan as she goes, and Penny looks at us.  “You handled that real well.”

“What do you mean?” I ask, and he shrugs.  “I dunno.  Sometimes people are mad that she says she’s a woman.  Other women, because they think she’s not a “real” woman, or men, because they think she’s trying to be something she’s not.  But she isn’t.  She’s been a woman her whole life, and as long as I’ve known her.”

My life would be so much easier if I could just say I was a woman and be treated like one, I think.  But it’s not something I’ve ever even thought about, because I’m not a woman.  I suppose Sloan just is.  

“Is Ava done with her bath yet?” I ask after a moment, and Nua laughs a little.  “You know how long her showers were.”

“Showers at home don’t go cold after five minutes,” I remind him, rising to my feet and taking the lantern with me.  “I’ll be back.”

But she’s not in the tent when I get there, and I just sit on the mat for a little bit.  I reach over to Nua’s side and pick up the book of fairy tales.  It’s big and red and has a woman on the front stitched in gold, her hair flying around her face.  A few ducks make a nest out of it, and I think of how Penny calls Ava duckling.  I trace them, wondering what fairy tale it’s from, and then Ava comes into the tent.

“Oh,” she says, stopping short.  “I didn’t…”

She’s just wrapped in a towel that she holds clutched to her chest.  I can see the tops of the stitches peeking out near her collarbone, and her hair drips onto her shoulders.  She raises her eyebrows at me.  “Did you ever get your own tents?”

I shake my head, and she blinks.  “Oh.

“Well,” she says after a moment, “I’m getting a strange sense of reversed déjà vu.”

I laugh slightly.  “I’ll go.”

“No,” she says slowly, examining me.  “I think I need your help.”

“With what?” I start to ask, and then I see she’s clutching something in a ball in her other hand.  She drops it onto the mat, and I see it’s a bunch of bandages.  She sits down across from me, then lets the towel slip down to her hips.  

The other bandages had been taken off for her bath.  In the lantern light I can see much more clearly the cuts and stitches and scars that amass across her chest, leaving her pale skin looking like pieces of a puzzle crudely thrown together.  Bruises spread like rivers along them, and I almost reach out to touch one out of awe.  “Woah.”

“Yeah,” she says through a harsh exhale, and I look up at her.  Her face has gone almost white, and I touch her hand, then grab the bandages for her.  “Ava, you’re not healed yet.”

“I’m okay,” she breathes as I start to apply one for her.  

“If you die,” I say, and she leans back, closing her eyes, and snorts.  “Again.”

I laugh humorlessly.  “Nua will explode.”

“Good thing I’m not gonna die, then,” she says quietly as I finish.  She looks down at what I’ve done, then smiles slightly at me, pulling up the towel again.  “Thank you.”

“You’re not healed.”

“I had to run almost as soon as I woke up,” she says quietly.  “There was no time.”

I stare at her, and then she says, “I’m fine.”

“I believe you,” I say, my expression making it clear that I do not believe her, and she rolls her eyes at me.  “Go make me some coffee.”

“Please don’t order me around,” I say softly, and she looks at me, drawing her knees to her chest and resting her chin on them.  She sighs.  “Sorry.”

And I smile a little, reaching for her hand.  She lets me take it, and I run my fingers over her wedding ring and Keol’s.  “You’re gonna be okay.”

She doesn’t answer, just looks at me from under her lashes.

“And so’s Bayan,” I say softly.  “Everything’s gonna be fine.”

“I love you,” she murmurs.  It washes over me, setting a fire in my stomach, and I feel warm inside.  She takes a deep breath, and says, “And I’m sorry.”

“For what?” I ask, unable to stop a laugh, and she smiles a little too.  “For dragging you here.”

“Better here than there,” I say with a shrug, and she twists her mouth, but smiles a little again.  “I guess.”

“Come to the fire forum when you’re done,” I say quietly after a moment, gently pulling my hand away, and she looks up at me as I raise myself up to leave the tent.  I look back at her at the door, and she’s turned away, but I can still see a smile on her lips when I go.