Crow had lasted all of an hour without movement before he’d grown unable to tolerate the stillness. Pain succumbing to claustrophobia, aching joints screaming with triumph and torment both as he forced himself up.

Even with the aches across his body tripled in severity, it was a relief to have his feet beneath him. A greater one by far to feel his muscles coil with the effort of walking.

Deka had spoken true when she warned Crow of his joints. The elbows had been the worst of him, but he found his knees and ankles tensing with every step as well. They were slow to obey, unreliable even when doing so. Caving suddenly when tested with weight, or else lagging behind the rest of his body and tripping him.

Learning to deal with his own limbs being so unreliable was new to Crow, and a sobering experience. He’d grown to hate it in minutes.

Yet worse than his yielding body was the knowledge that it had been brought on by his own actions. That there wasn’t a person Crow could blame for his condition but himself. The truth tasted bitter.

Bitter, and all the more so knowing that his drive might have been for nothing.

Try as he might, Crow found Astra’s words returning to the front of his thoughts. Echoing through his mind like a phantom, making a misery of his cognition by poisoning every notion that came to his head.

There was another way. He found himself thinking, recalling the offer levelled at him by Sorafin. He’d almost come to dismiss it entirely, considering the thought of travel and tutorship in the wild continent of Dewlz to be no thought at all, yet now the opportunity came to sear his memory.

Crow wondered why he’d been so dismissive of the chance, considering for the first time how excellent it was. He’d told himself it would be one to take after winning the Nectar, but he knew the self deception for what it was.

Wherever his train of thought might have headed, Crow found it interrupted by a knocking on his door.

The sound was gentle, as far as he could tell, but still rang loud and intrusive in the late hours’ silence. It drew him to answer with a haste that spited his battered body, hobbling steps bringing him quickly to it.

He opened the door with a strained effort, arm nearly surrendering as the heavy oak swung open. Pain became a distant memory as Crow laid eyes on Amelia.

“Hi Crow.” The girl almost shouted, smiling as she always did. In the grim light, framed and darkened by her charcoal eyes, the expression seemed more sinister than endearing.

“Good evening Amelia.” He answered, feeling a grin sprout across his face at her unexpected presence. “What brings you here?”

“I heard you got hurt.” The girl replied, stepping past him to enter without asking. “Thought I’d come and see myself.”

“Visit me, you mean?” He prompted.

“Sure.”

“Well, thank you. I appreciate it.”

Crow found himself suddenly unsure of what to say, words drying up in his mouth before Amelia’s aloof kindness. She seemed as unaffected by his awkwardness as all other things.

“So this is where you’re staying at the moment.” She noted, moving into the living area. Crow hurried after her, grunting with the discomfort of his tender legs.

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“Yes. We were moved here after the incident with the Overseer’s death, the Sieve apparently worried that being next to the outer walls wasn’t safe enough.”

Amelia nodded absently.

“They moved my team too. It’s a bit silly I think, a few more layers of stone won’t do anything if an Immortal tries to kill someone.”

Crow realised he’d barely noticed the girl’s disconcerting chirpiness as she mused on the incident. Growing used to it, he supposed. The mention of Tamaias turned his head nonetheless to matters of the Sieve.

“Your task is tomorrow isn’t it?” He asked. Amelia nodded, eyes still moving across the room rather than shifting to Crow. “How are you feeling about that?”

That drew her gaze, if fleetingly. She studied Crow like he’d said something deranged.

“Curious.” She shrugged, as impassive as ever. “I think Rajah might be tougher than me, but I won’t know for sure until we fight each other.”

“I’m talking about nerves, Amelia.” Crow answered, irritation sparking. “Surely you’re at least worried about losing.”

He drew nothing but a blank stare from the girl, tinged with curiosity.

“I’ll never understand why you all talk so much about that.” Amelia sighed, shaking her head slightly. “What’s the use in being scared of something that’s still hours away? It makes no sense.”

Crow considered trying to explain the emotion, yet found he lacked even the energy for that much. Deciding to merely allow Amelia her idiosyncrasies.

“Well, I wish you good luck anyway. Though I also wished Rajah good luck, so I suppose I’m just cancelling out my own efforts.”

Amelia grinned her wild, girlish grin. In the dim light of the room, her face seemed strangely sharp. Angular and tough as ever, carrying all the beauty of a masterfully wrought blade.

“You could kiss me.” She suggested. The words came so abruptly that Crow took a moment to process them, his face burning as they sunk in.

“What?” He spluttered. Amelia was without even a whisper of his embarrassment. Her smile not wavering a millimetre as she answered.

“I heard someone mention before the first stage that kissing people gives them good luck.”

The girl’s stare was no less innocent than a newborn’s, and Crow suddenly found himself turning away from it. Feeling somehow unclean to be confronted by such purity of thought. He tried to speak, but no words escaped him. Instead his moving lips and convulsing throat formed only a strangled squeal. Humiliating, and failing to convey any meaningful response at all.

Amelia eyed him for a moment more before her face split with laughter.

“Relax.” She chortled. “I know all about kissing and what it’s for, my people aren’t that different from your own.”

He couldn’t meet her eye as his face burned, looking instead to the ground. There was no judging gaze to be found in the floor, no mocking amusement. It was a safe place to leave his stare.

“You’re evil, you know that.” He muttered, fighting back a grin even as he shot back his answer. Crow was so caught up in his own embarrassment and amusement that he barely even noticed Amelia moving towards him.

By the time he looked up, she’d already wrapped her arms around him. Pulling him tight with a strength Crow would have thought impossible without magic, yet a gentleness that left no scraps of pain to dance along his tortured flesh. Amelia pressed her lips against his softly enough to bely all other things he knew of the girl, and he was kissing her back in an instant.

Time seemed to peel away and fall as flakes, made irrelevant by their shared embrace. Buried beneath the softness of Amelia’s skin, the warmth of her flesh, the sheer intimacy burning between them.

It was soon over, lungs protesting for oxygen and breaking them apart.

Amelia seemed to have a slight flush as she stepped back, and Crow realised it was the only thing he’d ever seen break her perpetual mask of indifferent cheeriness. Save the alphoe.

She still smiled as he stared, seeming no less confident for it.

“There.” Amelia beamed. “Now I’ll be sure to win, unless you’re planning on kissing Rajah as well.”

The girl turned quickly, almost hastily, all her feline grace beating a swift retreat as she headed for the door. Crow barely thought to call out a final question before she disappeared.

“Where are you from?” He asked her, needing to know more than ever after what they’d shared.

No answer came as Amelia disappeared from his quarters. He should have expected as much.