The basket hilt on Ryoko’s sword was a dense collection of overlapping scrolls. It was a design passed down through her family for, as her parents told it, something like seven generations. Since the days when they had been soldiers, and not just caravan guards.

Ryoko hadn’t met her father’s mother, or any of her siblings, who had been the previous generation to wield the family’s weapon. But she had seen her grandmother’s sword, proudly displayed in the main room of the family house.

Aside from being a great way to punch someone who got too close, the dense scrollwork of the basket hilt was used to record the number of deaths brought by the sword. Her grandmother’s sword had had twenty-one notches on it.

By the time Ryoko’s parents retired, her father’s sword had had sixteen notches and her mother’s sword, made for her when they married, had had seven. The hilt of Ryoko’s sword, after three years of ownership, was nearly full.

When she had been young, admiring the family swords, Ryoko had guessed that the current hilt design would comfortably carry a hundred notches. As her own sword edged closer to a hundred notches, she had decided that she was right.

Ryoko had not added a new notch to her hilt in close to eight months.

The growing restlessness Ryoko was feeling was almost certainly unrelated to the hilt of her sword. It was almost certainly related to the looming, but so far unmanifested, threat of the Lord’s House.

That was the only thing Ryoko could work out. She had spent just about seven months in Lookout, doing very little, and she hadn’t felt the sort of restlessness she was feeling now. The inspection from the Lord’s House had arrived, been sent packing swiftly, and Ryoko was feeling restless.

If anything, the trip to Yarkot had made it worse. A bunch of stuffy old bureaucrats who couldn’t see a good deal when it stared them in the face. Or they could see a bad deal staring them in the face.

Either way, Ryoko was annoyed.

She couldn’t go to Ora, who would have been her very first thought any other time. But Ora seemed to have it worse. She’d been jumpy and fidgety for months, worrying about the Lord’s House.

It made sense, of course. Ora had escaped the Lord’s House six years ago, and the threat of their return couldn’t be easy to deal with. What made it worse was that Ryoko didn’t know how to help.

Usually, when either of them was worried or upset, even at each other, it meant that more hugs and praise and reassurance was in order. But Ora’s worry had proven unusually resilient.

And again, it made sense. Ryoko certainly wasn’t happy about the prospect of being enslaved by the Lord’s House, if Lookout did fall. She didn’t think it was very likely, considering what had happened with Wasolan, but it was a possibility she had to consider.

Ora had actually lived that life, though. Ryoko had to assume that the prospect of being re-enslaved was much worse. To have freedom for however long, only for it to be taken away again. Seemed horrifying.

But Ora didn’t want to talk about it. Her answers were short, she fidgeted and worried at the embroidery in her dresses. So Ryoko was at a loss. Which was a self-reinforcing problem.

Ryoko felt bad that she couldn’t be more help to Ora. Ryoko was even less help, since she was already feeling bad herself. She felt bad for feeling bad, since it was getting in the way of being helpful. There was no escape.

So Ryoko was restless.

She jumped at every opportunity to go scouting into the Lord’s House. It didn’t help. Outer Light, where Ora had escaped from, was too well fortified to learn anything about without being spotted. The patrols took the same route they always did. Ryoko couldn’t join the infiltration of Deep Illumination, given that half the population of Haven was better suited to the job than she was.

What was she supposed to do?

Only one thing came to her mind, if she thought about it. She ought to go home to Altok. Not to stay or anything, but she was pretty sure this was the longest she’d been away from home in her life.

There hadn’t been an expedition to the blacklands since Heft and Pest’s troop had arrived at Outpost a year and nine months ago. But Ryoko had been home a few times, hunting down raiders and slavers around Journey, and then on the diplomatic mission, and then when she went to join the defence of Altok with Jules and most of the garrison from Outpost.

Since then, she’d had no reason to go back. She could have chosen to go back to Altok, she supposed. Most of the last seven months had been absent anything so critical it couldn’t be put on hold for a couple of weeks. And now it felt like she couldn’t leave Lookout in case the Lord’s House arrived while she was away.

Maybe it wouldn’t matter whether she was there or not, one person couldn’t make so much difference. But other than the defence of Altok, she always visited with at least Ora and Tengu.

The more Ryoko thought about it, the more certain she was that this was the trouble. She was feeling restless because she wanted to go home.

Her twenty-first birthday was rapidly approaching and, even since coming to Haven, she’d always been home for her birthday. It felt wrong to not go home for her birthday.

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But it would equally feel wrong to not have Ora and Tengu around.

The closer her birthday got, the more she considered just going by herself. The route to Altok was clear enough that she wasn’t worried for her safety. And she’d only had two birthdays since coming to Haven, so surely it wouldn’t feel so strange to have one without Ora and Tengu.

As a result of all this thinking, Ora and Ryoko barely talked to each other for nearly two weeks.

Of the few things that Ryoko knew for sure about Tengu, the main one was that Tengu hated to be given credit for things, even if she’d certainly done them and they had worked out perfectly. Secondarily, Tengu was both extremely good with people, and dealt with them as little as possible.

‘Ryoko, I would like a word,’ Tengu said, doing that thing she did sometimes where she appeared out of nowhere but managed not to be startling.

Sometimes Tengu would like a word, this was not strange.

‘Sure thing,’ Ryoko said. She followed Tengu over to the little house near the wall that Tengu and Ora were living in while at Lookout.

For some reason, Ryoko was surprised to find that Ora was already inside.

Tengu waved at Ryoko to sit down in the second plush chair in the room, across from Ora. Ryoko didn’t want to. She did it anyway. Not following Tengu’s instructions was not the done thing.

For a very long few seconds, Tengu just stood there, looking between Ora and Ryoko. Then she sighed. ‘You two need to talk to each other. You will not leave until you’ve sorted it out.’ Then she turned on her heel and left, closing the door behind her.

Ryoko and Ora looked at each other for a few, very long seconds. Ryoko run a finger over the notches on her hilt. Ora played with one of the loops on her dress that her armour attached to.

Ora got to it first. ‘I’ll put on some tea.’

‘Good idea.’

They both got up and set about making a pot of tea. They’d made tea together enough times that they didn’t need to talk about it, which worked perfectly for Ryoko. She didn’t want to talk about it.

Except that Tengu had told her to talk about it.

‘I’m thinking about going home for a bit,’ Ryoko said.

Ora stopped in the middle of pouring water into the teapot. The water didn’t stop pouring. She caught it before the teapot overfilled. Ora turned the hob off and put the kettle back before she said anything.

‘For your birthday?’ Ora asked, eventually.

Ryoko nodded. ‘I thought you and Tengu would want to stay here, in case the Lord’s House arrives,’ she said.

Ryoko put the teapot on the side table, Ora put down the mugs.

‘I hadn’t thought of that,’ Ora said. ‘I forget, sometimes, about having parents.’

‘I’ve just been feeling restless or something. I think it’s because I haven’t been home in a while. And I’m always home for my birthday, you know?’

Ora nodded along. ‘I see…’ she said, frowning prettily. ‘That’s good. I mean…’ Ora took a deep breath and sighed. ‘I was worried you were upset with me. I’ve been… I don’t know. I’ve not been much good to be around the last while.’

Ryoko shook her head, her gut clenched. ‘No, no. I get it. The whole Lord’s House, thing. At least I think I get it. That’s part of… I’ve been feeling like I want to leave, but I shouldn’t. I mean… I wouldn’t make much difference either way, right? But I’d rather be here if something happens. And I’d rather be here if you’re here, you know?’

Ora blushed. ‘I’d rather be where you are,’ she said. ‘I… it’s not just…’ She stopped talking, frowned prettily, and poured some tea.

Ryoko sipped her tea and didn’t push.

‘I hadn’t thought about it,’ Ora said again. ‘I… I wouldn’t make that much difference either, I suppose.’ She pressed her lips together for a moment, then sipped her tea. ‘Tengu would, wouldn’t she?’

Ryoko smiled. ‘She would, I’m sure. But I…’ She stopped and thought about it. She had already thought about it. Had she just been planning to leave and not say anything? Go home by herself without even asking if Ora or Tengu wanted to come with her?

Had she been planning anything at all?

‘Oh,’ Ryoko said. ‘I’m a bit thick, huh?’

‘Thick muscles,’ Ora said, almost reflexively.

Ryoko smiled and maybe blushed a little. ‘I was just going to… I don’t know, be mean to myself or something. Just sit through it and not do anything.’

‘Don’t be mean to yourself,’ Ora said. ‘You deserve only kindness, as you well know.’

They smiled at each other for a moment, ‘Alright. Do you want to come to Altok with me, even though we might be away if something happens? I’ll ask Tengu too.’

Ora frowned, cutely. ‘I think so,’ she said, then, for good measure, added: ‘Yes, I do want to come to Altok with you.’

‘Great,’ Ryoko said. ‘Amazing.’ She leaned over to give Ora a hug. ‘Just have to ask Tengu. We’d need to leave pretty soon.’

Ora sipped her tea.

Ryoko sipped her tea. ‘Alright, I guess we can leave now? We’ve talked about it.’

Ora sipped her tea. Then put her mug down. Then took a deep breath. ‘Tengu, I’ve been thinking about it a lot and I want our relationship to be romantic,’ she said, very quickly. Then turned entirely red. ‘No! Wait. Ryoko. Not Tengu.’

Ryoko could have exploded. Instead she said ‘huh?’

Ora was hyperventilating. She did her best. ‘Ryoko. I’ve been thinking about it… a lot… and I’m pretty sure… I want our relationship to be… romantic.’ She took a deep breath. ‘But I tried to ask Beln for advice and he thought I was into Tengu and so I said Tengu instead of Ryoko and I might have died for a second there.’

Ryoko definitely could have exploded. ‘I’m going to go beat him up.’

Ora managed to smile, and waved placatingly. ‘No, he was helpful. He’s just… less insightful than I thought.’

Ryoko rubbed her hands together. ‘I feel like I don’t need to go home anymore. Best birthday ever already.’

Ora blushed. ‘But I already agreed. Wait, is that a yes, you want to as well.’

Ryoko took a very deep breath and didn’t start dancing or shouting. ‘I very much do want to, yes. Absolutely. Not a shadow of a doubt. Have basically since we met. But… there’s a lot going on, you know, and I didn’t want to… jeopardise what we already had and make things uncomfortable and… yes. I do want to do that.’

Ora sighed. ‘Oh. Good. I feel a lot better now.’

‘Very good.’ Ryoko stood up. Then sat back down and sipped her tea. ‘So… can I kiss you?’

Ora stared blankly at her and slowly turned red again. ‘Yes.’

Ryoko only technically knew more about kissing that Ora did. She had seen more people kiss than Ora had. There was some bumping of noses, some giggling, a lot of blushing, and they both enjoyed the process very much.