I reset no traps while they're gone. I try--for Kael's sake--but I don't know how to reset any of them. And I'm not eager to experiment with deadly crossbow bolts, or darts and their air-pressure launchers, or tripwires and falling axes--unless I have a giant mist shield, but I can't keep one of those between my hands and the trap I'm resetting, can I?

I do clear the carpet of darts though, and scatter them in the hallway where an intruder might step on them.

Then I investigate Zadia's dark bathroom. She's got a flushable toilet, a bronze tub with no drain, and hardly any standing room on the bare stones.

The rest of her quarters don't take long to explore, there's nothing special about the mattress, or the smashed table, the curtains, or the rug.

She doesn't even own a place to keep spare clothes, and there's no visible storage space for sheets, a pillow. And no trap door's hidden under the rug, or the table. So maybe she keeps her things in a traveling bag like Kael and Nomsa have--but where would she keep that, if she were here? On the bed beside her?

The only things that might truly belong to Zadia in this room are the poison bolts and feathered darts and warhammer.

Then I peer down the trap door; Zadia could theoretically keep belongings stashed in this secret tunnel. And I could go chasing after Nomsa and Kael to tell them we need sheets for the mattress. But when I try to make my mist breath work, nothing happens.

So I don't enter the tunnel. I eat rabbit jerky out of Kael's bag, and drink half the water, then feel weirdly guilty for rooting through their stuff, so I put the water container back and tie the flap shut again.

I open a curtain, but all it shows is a narrow courtyard--without any paths, just brown dirt--surrounded by lighter brown castle walls.

But the sunlight in the room illuminates a few bright darts I missed in the loose fibers of the pink- and red-streaked rug, so I gather them up and toss them into the hall.

Then I bounce on the mattress, bored, pretending to make a symphony out of its woody squeaks.

I stop when Nomsa and Kael return though, poking their heads up through the trap door.

They bear packets of food and books and a case full of white clothing (but when I ask, they say they didn't think of bed sheets), and they make me haul half of it out of the hole. I spread belongings across the rug.

"The tunnels go all over the place." Nomsa climbs from the trapdoor, eyes gleaming, hands mimicking corridors like garters. "We popped out of a cabinet inside the kitchen--the trapdoor blended in perfectly with the wood."

"And there's a banner inside the library that hides a tiny door." Kael climbs out after. Dust balls cling in their hair.

"And a fake wall in the corner of the laundry room," Nomsa laughs. "I love this." Her face darkens to a scowl. "And Zadia is going to get it for keeping it from us."

Instead of asking how Zadia's going to "get it," I organize the food packets in rows. Salted meat, hard bread, milk in squishy bags. Kael and Nomsa gather on the edge of the rug, giggling about the tunnels and how they spooked a pair of washers by knocking over a pile of towels without getting seen. Trying to ignore them, I pile crackers beside the heap of books, leatherbound, titled with flowy words--but the name across one of the spines sends tingles up my back. Dreamwalking Dangers.

I pull it out of the stack, sending half the others tumbling onto the heaped clothes.

"Hey." Nomsa pushes a book off the clothes. "What was that for?"

I wave Dreamwalking Dangers at Kael's face. "What's dreamwalking?"

Their eyes cross, and they lean away. "Step five in our plan to train you?"

"You already gave them steps?" Nomsa scoots over, knees plowing through the fuzzy fabric. "What's step one? Obey what I say?"

"Step one's the basics of mist manipulation." Kael points to the knocked-over pile. "They were in order."

"What's dreamwalking?" I say again, flapping the thick, hardcover book.

Kael pushes my hand away. "It's like a mist wraith, but you use it to plant dreams in people's heads. Eventually you can get the person to act out the actions from their dreams, but you have to build up to it. Repeat the same dream over and over, train the muscles to slowly respond to the motions happening in the dream..."

"It's a super slow process," Nomsa says. "Usually it never works, because it's got warning signs written all over it."

"But you talked about seeing things in dreams..." Kael nibbles their lip. "It's at least good to know in case someone tries doing it on you. Make sure you tell us if you start having recurring dreams."

I lower the book. "You think someone's tried to dreamwalk me?"

Kael shakes their head. "No, sorry, I mean you should be careful..." Their fingers flex. "No, the first thing I meant was, you have a natural dream instinct. Like when you saw us going inside the cave when you were unconscious. So I wondered if you had a natural skill for dreamwalking."

Okay. I lean back. Set the book on top of the stack, amidst black covers about sun rays and lancers and mist wraiths.

A natural skill for it?

"But that's step five," Kael says.

"Yeah," Nomsa waves a thin, floppy book between us. "Baby basics for you first."

"Yeah." I nod, and Nomsa tosses the book aside, scooting back to sort through the clothing.

But Kael tilts their head, gaze fixed on my nose. "Why were you so curious about dreamwalking?"

I shrug, curling my fingers in my lap. "Nomsa mentioned it. At the same time as mind control and stuff. So..."

Nomsa holds up a too-wide shirt, inspecting it. "You're curious about mind control?"

"Yes."

She flaps the shirt around. "Why?"

A faint prickle races up my spine, a gloved hand tightens around my shoulder, but I suppress the shudder. "I want to make someone leave me alone."

Kael's head tilts the other way. "Who won't leave you alone?"

Nomsa's fingers count off the people in the room. Then her eyebrows furrow. "Are you talking about me?"

"No." My eyes flick to Kael, then away. "His name's Perseverance."

"Huh." Nomsa chucks a handful of clothing aside, then picks up a bundle of shorts. "I haven't seen him, I think you're good."

"Who's Perseverance?" Kael scoots closer, so our knees touch, through the fabric of my pants. "You mention him. Often. But never...why you hate him. Or why he hated you."

My shoulders tense up. I glance at Nomsa, but she's busy sorting the clothes. The rug holds three messy piles so far.

"Well..." I scoot slightly backward, gaze fixed on the floor. "How many people in this fort are super adamant that guys should marry girls, even when they...squirm at the idea?"

"Uh..." Nomsa pauses, face scrunching. "I don't know, maybe Iman, She of the Dull Spear?"

"I thought I heard she'd kissed four of the women on the wall guard," Kael says.

"Oh. Then the dead librarian guy?"

Kael glares. "I don't think that counts."

"So..." I cross my arms. "Not really anyone, then?"

"This Perseverance guy"--Nomsa chucks a pair of socks into the pile behind her, by the mattress--"sounds like he was like that." Then she sucks air through her teeth. "Perseverance is a dumb name."

"It was the whole castle," I whisper. "But Perseverance found out."

"I also take it you weren't doing the 'they' thing back then?" Nomsa asks.

"No." I curl my fingers against the sides of my ribs.

Kael scoots until our knees touch again. "Perseverance said bad things about you?"

I grit my teeth. "No, he didn't say bad things about me. He told me a whole story about his life and how he used to be attracted to this guy but he squashed that and made himself fall in love with a girl." Heat creeps up my neck. "Then he tried making me date his daughter, and would never leave me alone."

Kael's hands snap forward and snatch my wrists, tugging them away from my body. "Troy."

"Then she kissed me, and that's when I cried in a cellar."

"Troy," Kael says. "You can stop talking."

"Then she saw the mist and attacked me. And what made it worse is he didn't say bad things about me, just that I had to be strong and wait for something better--"

"Troy--"

"And I had to pretend--"

Their nails dig into my wrists and I wince.

"Stop," they say.

Heat creeps into my cheeks. But I shut my mouth.

"Night Warriors can rot," Nomsa growls. "Burn in a volcano." She picks up the dreamwalker book and goes quiet. She flips it open, turning pages without really reading. "If we charge you with light again, Troy, you're probably powerful enough to reach clear to the Obsidian Castle."

"Yeah." Kael nods.

My fingers curl around their wrists. "I..." I swallow. "I thought of a vague idea. To like, get revenge. But..."

Kael waits.

"Isn't revenge bad?"

Kael snorts. "So what are you going to do instead, bottle up your anger? Let it fester and hurt you?"

"Why don't you dreamwalk their leader to death at the same time too?" Nomsa says. "If you're right, and their leader's been in power for like two decades, that oughta cause chaos."

"I am right about that," I mutter.

"So you have a vague idea?" Kael whispers.

I nod. "If I can make Perseverance kiss this guy he had a crush on years ago, it'd mess up their families. And Perseverance too. Especially if he thinks he did it himself. I..." I grit my teeth, and tears spring in my eyes. "I thought there was no way to get to them again but..." I slowly inhale. "Dreamwalking?"

"Troy," Nomsa cackles, "I thought you just wanted to kill the guy. But screwing up his life is even better."

Kael's lip twitches. "Let's make dreamwalking step...one."

I smirk back. "Okay."

***

We sit in the sunlight with the curtains thrown wide (Zadia put tiny needles on the insides of the curtains. I didn't push any open enough to notice, but Kael does, so I have to heal Kael's hands, then they use mist to open the rest, standing out of the way of potential bolts and darts that don't come), reading books on dreamwalking and mist basics, until the light fades and we all fall asleep on Zadia's mattress, shoved back over the trapdoor. In the middle of the night, I wake to find Nomsa and Kael back to back, curled into balls, and wonder if we should've reset some of the traps before all dozing off.

So I go and re-arm crossbows and aim them all at the doorway, and rig some aimed toward the windows, only to wake with sunlight streaming across my face, lying in the same place on the mattress, with no crossbows rigged up anywhere.

But no one's slaughtered us in our sleep. No one's even knocked on Zadia's door to ask what the ruckus yesterday was all about, all the crossbows firing and axes clanging and tables smashing.

Maybe, the next door neighbors assume whoever did it died, and haven't bothered to check for the body.

Or maybe there are no next door neighbors.

I sit up, squeaking the mattress. Nomsa's awake, cross-legged on the rug, staring at the little black cooking plate with bread on it. She's dressed in the same one-sleeve jumpsuit as yesterday, but now she's barefoot. I try not to let my jaw drop. But my eyes keep staring. Her right foot ends halfway down--she has a heel, but no toes.

"Want some toast?" she glances at me. Then her eyes flick to where my eyes are, and her face goes still. "What's the big deal, never seen someone with a war injury?"

I shake my head, light hair bouncing over my ears. "No, it's just--"

"You can heal yourself, so you forgot other people get injured?"

"No, I mean, I can heal, lots of people in the Obsidian Castle can heal but they can't remake entire limbs--"

"Oh and you somehow know this despite gaping at my foot like it's a novelty?"

"No." I frantically wave my hands. "I just didn't notice yesterday, that's all I meant, that's why I was staring. Even when you had your boots off."

Lips flat, she points by the mattress. I twist around. By her and Kael's boots, she left her socks. One of them holds a shape an awful lot like the front half of a foot.

"Oh," I say.

"I have a wooden foot so I don't fall over. Happy now?"

I twist back around. "I mean, I know there were soldiers with missing hands or chopped off feet, but I never really met them personally."

She picks up the toast, lightly browned on one side, and flips it over. "Okay...good for you?"

"So I mean your foot's not like a novelty," I rush. "That's all."

She says nothing. Faint wisps of light spiral from her nostrils to the base of the heating plate, held vertical between two books.

I shift, like she's staring at me from the corner of her eye. "I don't know if I could heal a whole missing arm. Maybe someone in the castle has tried..." I dig my fingernails into the tufts of pink fabric sticking from the rug. "I at least would have to know more about bones. And figure out how to shape the whole thing out of nothing, instead of just stitching pieces back together. But I'm probably more powerful than their healers. I just haven't tried."

She arches an eyebrow at me. "Is this you saying you want to try on me?"

My eyes widen. "No, no, I didn't mean that."

"Well the answer's no, dumbie. If you're the mad doctor, I opt out of being the experiment monster." She picks up her toast and bites into it.

"What?" I fold my arms. "I didn't know I was a mad doctor."

"Troy," she says, "can we talk about something else? I'm not all that interested in hearing about your healing powers, unless someone's stabbed me and I'm about to die." She lifts her foot and wags it in my face. "Have you seen enough of it? Got all your random thoughts out of your head about it?"

I open my mouth.

"Good," she interrupts, then lowers her foot and takes another bite of toast.

"Wait, one random question first."

She raises an eyebrow.

"So"--I nibble my lip--"just give me an answer, honest or not, and I won't say anything about it ever."

"Awesome." She rolls her eyes.

"Would you, if someone actually knew how, heal your foot?"

She blinks. "Were you ever happy in the Obsidian Castle?"

I frown. "Yeah?" I swallow. "Probably?"

She leans closer, crumbs stuck to her lips. "Would you go back there?"

"Um." I stare at my knees.

"That's what I thought." She stuffs toast in her mouth.

I'm...not sure how that relates to losing a foot but okay. "I just, for my whole life, have never been able to smell anything. And I don't know what I would do, if I ever figured out how to fix that." I carefully scoot away. Then glance over my shoulder, but Kael's still asleep, curled in their side, on the thin mattress.

"You can't smell anything?"

I turn back to Nomsa. She's licking her lips.

"No," I say.

"So it wasn't the aroma of my delicious toasty bread that woke you."

"No."

"Unfortunate." She rips her bread in half.

"So." I point at the heating plate, now dull--no light wisps around the base anymore. "Can you teach me how to use that?"

"Can you breathe mist?" she asks.

I breathe out. Nothing happens.

She crunches into the toast. "Nope, I can't."

***

We sneak to the library. All three of us. After we've taken turns using the tiny restroom to change clothes (I stand in the tub, illuminated by a mist cloud Nomsa left swirling about the toilet), resulting in us wearing nearly matching outfits of white, baggy shirts and shorts. Kael and Nomsa also jam the door shut by lodging the ax between the handle and wall, and reset some of the crossbows aimed at the door.

Then we sneak to the library through the tunnels, walking by the light of Nomsa's glowing orbs (Kael claims they weren't sleeping close enough to the window to absorb much sunlight), and I ask if we're just going to keep doing this, avoiding all other occupants of the fort.

"Nope, we'll introduce you at lunch," Kael says. "The cafeteria's neutral ground."

"Hopefully," Nomsa says, leading the way, her head ducked against the low ceiling.

"That's what those chefs were saying yesterday when we swiped stuff."

"That's what we think they were saying."

"Do I have to take that maturity test?" I keep my head bowed beneath the tunnel roof, lower back aching. To relieve it, I switch to walking with bent knees, lower back and neck vertical, but my thighs groan after only a few paces. So I switch back.

"Yeah, probably." Kael munches on strips of meat--not rabbit jerky this time, apparently. It's some kind of garter meat, salted like travel rations--Kael apparently hasn't given up eating travel rations yet. "Unless you want your lunch introduction to sentence you to life exclusively inside the fort grounds."

"Assuming those rules still apply." Nomsa's orbs bob around her shoulders, revealing a three-way intersection. She strides left, Kael and I following. "Calvin or Axak or whoever's mostly in charge might ignore those."

"Or maybe not."

"So basically"--I splash through a faint trickle of water--"you have no idea what's going on."

Kael just shrugs.

"Right then," I sigh.

We keep winding through the tunnels, our shadows bouncing, and I take a turn crawling on hands and knees to rest my sore back. Barefoot, bare-kneed, barehanded--the stone floor rubs smooth and clean under my skin.

"We forgot to get me shoes." I climb back to my feet and jog stooped over to stay within Nomsa's light.

"Whoops," Kael says.

Nomsa shushes us, stopping and wiggling her fingers at the wall. There's words scrawled, in yellow chalk, that read, "library-an," then a jagged arrow points to a thin divide in the stone bricks, lit with dull yellow light.

"Why did you misspell...?" I whisper, pointing to the chalk.

"That's Zadia's writing," Kael whispers back. "Or someone else who knows about the tunnels. Though do we know if anyone else knows about the tunnels? No, no we don't. Should we recognize Zadia's writing? Maybe, but we don't--"

Nomsa's mist goes out, then slight rapping echoes through the tunnel. The yellow light expands; a cloth banner hangs over the now-open doorway.

She crawls through, pushing aside the banner. Ahead of her is a long bookshelf, the wood loaded with black tomes. Kael follows, and I crawl after their boots.

"Should I mark this spot again?" Kael whispers, standing on the hard floor painted soft green.

"If you want to leave your boot behind, be my guest," Nomsa says.

I stand, rolling out my neck, stretching my back.

"I will be your guest." Kael bends over, unlacing a boot.

The wall's covered with tall, blank yellow banners. Starting with the one our door's hidden behind, I count toward the nearest corner, but Nomsa elbows me and I lose track of which one's fifteen. I'm not even halfway to the corner.

"We're here for your dreamwalking books, so get searching." She motions to the shelves, barely tall enough to hide us, sagging with volumes. Half the titles squished on the shelves have black or dark covers, and the other half are white, brightly colored.

"Dreamwalking books, and the maturity test," Kael says. They drop a boot by the banners, but one off from where the door hides. I think.

"I volunteer to avoid Berrtie." Nomsa crosses her arms. "She hates me. And she's ugly."

"Okay then." Kael trudges away, one beige boot, one white sock. "Come on, Troy."

"Ugly?" I say.

"Yeah." Nomsa marches the other way. "Avoid her face."

"Why?"

"Ignore her," Kael says.

So I trot after them, eyeing the shelves. "What's this test like?"

They shrug, and our shoulders brush. "You write some stuff on a paper. The librarian grades it. Then you're either mature, or you're not mature."

I frown. "How does me writing stuff on a paper determine that? What if I fail?"

They blink at me. "I don't think you'll fail. Nomsa, Zadia and I all passed when we were eight."

"But...Iman, and Nomsa's mom..."

"Probably didn't want to pass." They shrug, turning a corner, leading us deeper into aisles of bookshelves.

"Also," I whisper, "why do you keep having Nomsa call you Michael? But me call you Kael? Do you still want to be called that?" I nibble my lip. "Are we still doing the 'they' thing together?"

Kael shrugs. "I like you calling me Kael, and I'm fine with going by they. But Nomsa..." They wrinkle their nose. "I don't know, she's been calling me Michael since we were tiny." The floorboards creak beneath our steps. "Her calling me something else..."

We slip around a corner, and I wait. They bundle a bunch of their shirt in their fist, over their chest. "I don't want to figure out who I'd have to change to be, to be them, Kael for Nomsa instead of him, Michael. Does that make any sense?"

I shrug. "I am going by Troy to distance myself from the person who went by One. So yeah, I think so."

They smile, softly. "So yeah. That's it. I feel like I show different parts of me to different people, and I have to figure out who each version of me looks like. So now I've got a new one, a deeper one, and I need to think about it. But I'll tell her soon. Maybe when Zadia gets here. Or maybe before, so she can already know when I tell Zadia..." They let out a breath.

I run my fingers over a row of book spines. Dust comes away. "You show different parts of you to different people?"

"That sounds like a suspicious question." Kael squints at me, lips pursed. "Doesn't it?"

Their gaze is boring into my head, so I swat a hand at their face, making them duck away. "You said it, not me," I say.

"No, wait, I'm trying to piece together why that's a suspicious thing to say. Do you not show different parts of you to different people?"

I glare, and stop walking. They stop too. "Of course I do," I say. "I never acted this way around Head Healer." Or, for goodness sake, Perseverance.

Their eyebrows furrow. "So I don't get why me saying that turned into a suspicious question."

"Because..." I grit my teeth. "Never mind. It sounds dumb now." I turn, stalking off through the aisle.

"Troy." Kael catches up, pattering footsteps uneven due to their one boot left behind. "I want to hear it now. I'm curious." Their fingers slide around my wrist. "Be super blunt, so I get it."

I don't pull away. But my hand clenches into a fist. "Are you lying to me about who you are?" Prickles creep up my neck. "See, it sounds stupid now, since I just said I act different around other people."

"It does sound stupid." They bob their head. "Yes, Troy, obviously I'm lying to you. By omission if nothing else, seeing as how I've been alive for eighteen years and couldn't possibly have told you every bit of my existence in the two weeks I've known you. I can't even remember all of that.

"But you...I've only ever shown you this part of me." Their fingers slide down to my knuckles and pry them apart, fitting my warm palm to their cool one. They lean over, face rising to mine.

"Okay." My heart skips. Our noses brush, lips finding each other. River rapids spread across my face, a waterfall replaces my heart.

They pull away, smirking.

My lip twitches back. Then I glance down the aisle. Empty. Quiet. Dust motes float in the bright sunlight falling from the translucent, arching ceiling.

"So." I step forward, tugging them along by our interlocked hands. "This library...it has night warrior books in it."

"Yep." Kael pokes the spine of one gray book, decorated with gold letters. "But they're not actually helpful for figuring out your enemy's secrets."

"Really?" I nudge their shoulder. "How many have you read?"

"A lot. All the romance ones."

I turn, staring. "Serious?"

They nod. "Nomsa and Zadia dated for a week and I got super lonely and spent that whole time reading romance novels. Like a spell"--they wave their free hand by their face--"it summoned you."

"Wait when did they date?"

Kael shrugs. "Less than a year ago. Like, the winter."

We enter a new aisle, the wood side dotted with speckles of yellow paint. I've lost sight of the mud brick walls in the maze of shelves. "That's way less time than I thought. Nomsa talks about it like ancient history."

They raise an eyebrow. "It is ancient history."

"Ancient history is not two measly seasons ago."

"Pffft." They wave a hand. "I've re-read almost the entire prophecies section twice since they gave it up. It was forever ago."

This aisle ends in a wide clearing, where Kael stops. So I do too. The open floor before us contains six desks, made of dark wood, arranged in a semi-circle around a tall counter for someone to sit behind. The black stone surface of the counter's totally bare; it throws glimmering light. A single, high-backed chair, empty, sits within the square perimeter of the counter's confines.

"Where's Berrtie?" Kael asks.

"What is this place?" I ask. The walls aren't visible, so I glance up at the bright ceiling. I think we're in the center of the library?

"Seriously, Berrtie's always here," Kael says. They pull me onward, up toward the desk. We have to stand on tiptoe to peer over it.

"Berrtie's the librarian, yeah?"

They nod. "And this is where you take the maturity test."

"They keep desks out for this?" I mutter.

Kael lets go of my hand, and jumps, hooking their hands behind the counter and pulling themselves over.

"What are you doing?"

"Berrtie's not here." They duck out of sight, and the tall chair squeals, sliding sideways and making me wince. I check over my shoulder like someone's going to find us. "So I'm looking for the test," they say. "You'll take it, then we'll leave it for her to grade."

"Should you be doing that?" I hiss. "Nomsa made Berrtie sound scary. What if she comes back here and...tries to murder us?"

Papers rustle. "Berrtie's not that bad. Nomsa just says she's ugly because Berrtie has an objectively average face. Medium nose, medium lips, medium eyes...though she doesn't even have acne so maybe that's not average." Their hair bobs up behind the counter, thick and fuzzy, then disappears again.

I stand on tiptoe, trying to see what they're doing. My back prickles though, certain we're going to get snuck up on. "Doesn't an average face make her...prettier?"

"Well if you think so, sure. But that's okay, I'm great at appreciating people whether other people find them pretty or ugly or what have you."

Self-consciously, I pat my face. Do I have medium eyes? And what's a normal nose size? Mine isn't as long as my index finger, is that normal?

"You don't have acne," I say.

"Not anymore!"

I poke my forehead. I haven't bothered with acne honestly, it's just kind of...existed sometimes, and hasn't other times. I could've gotten rid of it with skin magic, but feared people would point out how I was using healing power for my own appearance rather than saving wounded soldiers' lives.

"I don't think I have acne either right now," I say. Of course I've only poked my forehead, so.

"Aha!" Kael stands, a good head-length above me, and slams a stack of blue pages to the counter. It's as thick as their fist.

"That's the test?" I blanch, and break out coughing.

"No." They pluck off a single sheet from the top. "Here's your test."

Hesitantly, I take it, and skim the loopy handwriting across the top. "Would you," it reads, "or would you not, accept a viciously brutal death?"

"Oh," I say.

"Wow," Kael says. "Eminga took this test?" They plant another huge stack on the counter and flip one over. "When?"

I turn my paper to the back. Black words swirl in a wobbly line, "On a scale of dawn to noon, how prepared are you to fight to live?"

My eyebrows pull together. "This is the maturity test?"

"Oof, Leo only put that he's midmorning prepared to fight for his life."

I lay the paper on the counter, smoothing it out. "What does that mean? I mean, does dawn mean you're the most prepared to fight for your life, or does noon? How does this determine my maturity?"

Kael flips another off the stack, and their eyes bug out. "Iman took it again? Why?"

"Kael," I say. They glance at me. "What am I supposed to put?"

"I can't tell you that. Oh." They crouch again, then come up with a charcoal pencil. "Here." They thump it to the counter. It rolls, away from us, drawn to the distant edge.

"What does dawn mean?" I say. "Is this measuring how high the sun is, as in, I'm so prepared I'm as confident as the highest point of the sun? Or is it measuring dedication to waiting on the dawn?"

The pencil keeps rolling, edges clicking and clicking on the stone.

"I can't tell you." They grin. Then their gaze flicks past me. "Oh hey Berrtie."

I whirl around.

***

Author note: what would your answers to the 2 maturity questions be?