TRUST, SLOWLY

By the time we made it back to my chambers, I'd already decided the best way to handle the records office was to do absolutely nothing official about it and let the turnip story stand on its own merits.

"You realize that man is going to tell people the Luna has a sudden, deep interest in root vegetables," Zayen said, dropping onto the couch like the day had finally caught up with him.

"Good. Let him. Nobody questions a woman with strong feelings about turnips."

"Nobody understands a woman with strong feelings about turnips."

"Same thing, really."

Ren laughed from the doorway, a tray of food balanced in his hands that he'd apparently decided to go fetch without telling either of us, setting it down on the low table between the couches like this was a perfectly normal thing for a Lykora to do at this hour.

"You didn't have to do that," I said.

"You didn't eat dinner. Neither did Zayen. I'm not asking, I'm just telling you it's happening."

"Bossy," I said, though I was already reaching for the bread.

"Attentive," he corrected, settling onto the couch beside me, close enough that our shoulders touched the way they always seemed to end up.

For a while none of us said much, just ate and let the quiet settle, and it struck me how strange it was that quiet didn't feel heavy anymore the way it had a few days ago. No elders waiting outside a door. No looming deadline pressing against the back of my skull. Just the three of us, food going cold slightly because nobody was in a hurry to finish it, low conversation drifting in and out about nothing important.

"You know," Zayen said eventually, watching Ren steal a piece of bread off my plate instead of his own, "I think you've created a monster."

"I didn't create him. He came pre-installed this way."

"I'm right here," Ren said, mouth full.

"We know," I said. "We're talking about you, not around you."

"That's worse, somehow."

Zayen huffed a laugh, and something in his posture had eased since earlier, the careful watching from the archive doorway replaced by something looser, content rather than guarded. I noticed it and didn't draw attention to it, the same way I hadn't earlier, because some things settle better when you let them settle on their own instead of poking at them.

By the time the food was mostly gone, Ren had gone quiet in that specific way that meant he was fighting sleep and losing, his head drifting until it landed against my shoulder, completely unbothered by how that looked or whether it was appropriate, just settling in like it was the most natural thing in the world.

"Ren."

"Mm."

"You're falling asleep on me."

"I'm resting my eyes."

"Your eyes have been resting for ten minutes."

"They're very tired eyes."

I gave up arguing and let him stay there, his breathing slowing into something even and deep within another minute, completely unselfconscious in a way that still caught me off guard sometimes, how easily he let himself be soft when most people in this world seemed determined to prove how hard they could be instead.

Zayen watched the whole thing from across the couch, and I waited for some flicker of the tension I'd caught in the archive doorway earlier, but it didn't come. Instead something almost fond settled into his face, a small, quiet smile he probably didn't realize he was wearing.

"You're not going to tease him for falling asleep on me," I said.

"Why would I tease him for that."

"I don't know. Felt like the kind of thing you'd have an opinion about."

He shrugged, glancing at Ren's slack, peaceful face. "He doesn't sleep easy. Hasn't since I've known him. If he's comfortable enough to drop off sitting upright on a couch, that's not something I'd ruin with a joke."

That landed somewhere soft in my chest, and I filed it away instead of saying anything about it, because some things you just let sit instead of poking at them too.

"Earlier," I said instead, careful. "In the archive doorway. You looked at the two of us like you were doing math that wasn't adding up."

He didn't deny it, which I appreciated. "It's not jealousy, if that's what you're asking. Not exactly. It's more that you and Ren have this way of finding each other easy, fast, and I've never been built that way. Takes me longer to let people in."

"I noticed that about you. Day one, actually."

"That obvious."

"Extremely. But I'm not in a hurry, Zayen. I don't need you to be Ren. I just need you to keep showing up the way you have been, and the rest builds whenever it builds."

Something shifted in his face at that, quiet and real, and he reached over to tuck a strand of hair behind my ear, the same gesture Ren did constantly except slower, more deliberate, like everything Zayen did once he decided to do it.

"I'll hold you to that," he said.

"Please do."

We sat like that a while longer, Ren's weight warm and solid against my side, Zayen close enough that his knee pressed against mine, and I let myself just exist in it instead of turning the Shadow Blight thread or the missing family thread over in my head again. Both of those would still be there tomorrow, patient and waiting. Tonight didn't need to carry them.

I thought about my old life, briefly, the version of me that used to make herself smaller in rooms like this, quieter, careful never to take up too much space or want too much out loud. Nobody here was asking that of me. Nobody here flinched when I was too loud or too clumsy or too much. If anything, the two of them seemed to like me better for it, which still felt strange to sit with, like waiting for the catch that never came.

Eventually my own eyes started going heavy, the warmth of the room and the food and the closeness of them pulling me down toward sleep faster than I expected, Ren's steady breathing against my shoulder almost like a lullaby at this point.

Right as I was slipping under, somewhere at the very edge of myself, I felt something.

Not Ren. Not Zayen. Something else, faint and unfamiliar, brushing against the bond like a hand testing a locked door from the outside, gone again almost before I was sure I'd felt it at all.

I should have sat up. Should have said something.

Instead, too tired to chase it properly, I let the dark pull me under, the feeling tucked away somewhere I'd have to come back to in the morning.