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I knew the speech would fail. I rehearsed it twice anyway. I have never once rehearsed an abort call in my life.

The corridor to her quarters is eleven meters. I’ve walked toward drop pods calmer than this. Around meter seven the sentence started coming apart. At her hatch I stood with my hand up to knock, in full possession of an airtight reason to be anywhere else.

I didn’t get to. The hatch opened under my raised hand.

She was awake. Sitting on the edge of the cot with her hair down, loose over her shoulders. She looked at me and didn’t stand. “If you’re here to end it, do it inside.”

I stepped across the threshold. She’d known before I did. She’d walked out of that mess hall knowing exactly what she was doing and left me to decide whether I would follow.

“One regret,” I said. “What is it?”

It came out in my interrogation voice because I did not know how else to ask something that mattered this much. She stood off the cot and crossed the space slow enough that one word from me would have stopped her.

I didn’t have the word.

“That I didn’t finish what you started,” she said, and kissed me.

Whatever control I had brought to the room disappeared in one breath. My hands were in her hair and hers were fisted in my shirt.

It wasn’t gentle. She made a low sound into my mouth. I turned us and put her against the bulkhead because my knees were not as reliable as I wanted them to be.

She hit the steel and pulled me after her by the shirt. “Since the Virelle,” she said against my mouth. “You’ve been at parade rest since the Virelle. I could hear you burning across every room.”

“You could not.”

“Shuttle.” Her hands found my belt. “Datapad. The mat. You weren’t subtle.”

“You’ve been keeping track.”

“I’m thorough.” She put her mouth to my throat and I ran out of arguments.

I got a hand in her hair and tipped her head back to see her face. “I came here to end this.”

“I know.” Not smug. Certain. “You came prepared. Go on. Say it.”

“The mission.” I found pieces of it. “Nine hours. If my judgment tilts in that building, people I love die.”

“Your judgment doesn’t tilt. I’ve read three years of the Conclave failing to tilt it.” Her thumb dragged along my jaw and my breath went with it.

“I’m already in your head, Rylos. Finishing that sentence won’t change it.” She rose onto her toes, mouth at my ear.

“I’ve spent six years refusing to want anything I couldn’t safely have. You’ve spent six telling yourself you aren’t allowed to want anything at all. Tomorrow might cancel us both. I’m done waiting.”

I had no answer. She saw that and, for once, did not make me say it aloud.

“One thing first,” she said. My shirt went. Hers followed. Then she dragged her nails down my chest over the sigils. I caught her wrist, then let her do it again.

Something on the shelf tipped over and neither of us looked at it. She kissed down the sigil line on my sternum. I braced a palm against the cold bulkhead and held still for her.

“Lika.”

“Present.”

“You are dismantling⁠—”

“Yes.” Against my chest, pleased with herself past all decency. “You taught me how.”

I lifted her. Her legs came around me like they’d rehearsed it. The new angle put her exactly where I was already painfully hard.