Day 7 - Night 2/2

Van lasted six minutes on Katherine Wren’s old couch before boredom defeated him.

At first there had been enough to listen to. The radiator knocked every thirty seconds or so. Traffic moved beneath the apartment windows, occasionally punctuated by a horn or the growl of a truck changing gears. Behind him, down the short hallway and through the enormous bedroom the Hotel had grafted onto Katherine’s old home, the shower continued to run. Then the street quieted, the radiator fell silent, and Van found himself staring at a framed print on the opposite wall with the growing suspicion that he had already examined every object in the room at least twice.

He stood anyway. Katherine’s apartment felt different without Katherine moving through it. During the tour, every cheap cabinet and bad patch of paint had acquired a story. Without her voice attached to them, they were ordinary things again: a narrow bookcase beside the window, old paperbacks with cracked spines, magazines, travel guides, a ceramic cup full of pens, three loose batteries beside a folded restaurant menu. Van picked up the menu, glancing across the offerings, and put it back. The care with which the place had been duplicated was extreme, but at least the system had not included more personal items. That thought arrived approximately one second before he opened the drawer beneath the bookcase. He stopped with his hand on the wooden knob. “Right.”

His attention caught on a stack of photographs occupying one side of the drawer. They weren’t organized particularly well, just a loose collection of glossy prints from the era before everybody carried a camera in a pocket. Van hesitated, then lifted the top one.

A young woman stood beside a stone fountain in a public park. Dark hair, brown skin, round face, maybe twenty-five. She was looking toward whoever held the camera instead of at it, one hand tucked into the pocket of her coat. The next photograph showed a pale redheaded woman sitting at an outdoor café, freckles across a narrow face as she smiled over a bright glass of something cold. After her came an Asian woman beside a museum display, then a blonde at a street fair, then a woman with black hair cut almost to her chin on a gray beach where everyone looked underdressed for the weather.

Van frowned and spread several across the top of the bookcase. Different women, different places, different apparent ages. At first there was nothing to connect them except that Katherine had kept the photographs. Then he picked up one of an older woman standing beside an enormous sculpture outside a government building and something about the pose bothered him.

Her hand was in her coat pocket with the thumb hooked outside.

Van looked back at the woman beside the fountain. Same hand. Same thumb. The museum woman and the blonde at the street fair both stood with their weight settled onto one leg and the opposite foot angled outward. The faces had nothing in common, but once he stopped studying the faces the differences became less complete. There was the same slight head tilt when something held her attention. The same one-shoulder lean against walls and railings. In three photographs, despite different mouths and different apparent ages, he found the same crooked almost-smile Katherine wore when she had discovered a joke and had not yet decided whether to share it.

He lifted the café photograph again. “Oh.”

The bedroom door opened behind him. Van turned as Katherine emerged from the hallway, rubbing a towel through damp blonde hair. She had traded the too-tight Hotel clothing for one of his shirts, dark gray and softened by repeated washing. On him it was ordinary. On Katherine’s shorter, fuller shape it fell nearly to mid-thigh and covered her well enough that no shorts were visible beneath it.

Van’s eyes dropped to her softly rounded thigh before returning to her face.

Katherine stopped when she saw the photographs spread across the bookcase. Her gaze went from them to the open drawer, then to Van. “Snooping, Inspector Van?” She asked with mock seriousness.

“I got bored,” Van said, and immediately winced. “I wasn’t searching or anything. I never thought this would-” He held up the café photograph as weak evidence in his own defense. “Then I realized these are all you.”

Something in Katherine’s expression softened. She crossed the room and took the photograph from him, studying the redheaded woman with a fondness she had not shown the expensive art at the gallery. “Oh, I remember this place. Terrible service. Excellent bread. I kept going back for the bread and pretending I had forgotten about the service.”

Van leaned against the bookcase while she set that one down and picked up the older woman beside the sculpture. “What about her?”

“Museum annex. Closed for some event no one had bothered to put on the public schedule.” Katherine smiled at the image. “I had already spent an hour getting there, so I decided a locked door was not going to ruin my afternoon. I found a café, bought an overpriced pastry, and spent the rest of the day walking.”

“You look happy.”

“I was.”

She picked up the museum picture next and laughed under her breath. Van asked why, and Katherine turned the photograph so he could see the display behind her. “The public-address system failed that day. For four hours it played the same fragment of Clair de Lune between every announcement.”

“That sounds relaxing.”

“It was for the first ten minutes.” Katherine straightened and adopted the serene expression of a museum employee speaking through a dying speaker. “‘The east gallery will be closing in fifteen minutes.’” She hummed a few notes, then continued in the same solemn voice. “‘Please do not touch the exhibits.’” Another tiny piece of melody. “‘A child named Daniel has been separated from his party.’”

Van laughed. “You’re making that up.”

“I am not. By the third hour people were ready to attack Debussy personally.”

She went through a few more photographs while they stood there. The park with the fountain had a coffee stand near its southern entrance that served coffee strong enough to strip paint. Katherine had believed the dark coat in the picture made her look mysterious. Van disagreed. She accepted his judgment only after reminding him that he had already insulted her twelve-dollar wall art. Another photograph came from a street festival where she had lost a shoe and spent twenty minutes pretending walking barefoot had been intentional.

The memories were small, but they came easily. A bad meal. A good afternoon. A day when it rained earlier than expected. Places where she had gone without stealing anything, chasing anyone, or pretending to be there for a reason larger than wanting to be there.

Eventually Katherine gathered the photographs into a stack again, tapped the edges against her palm until they were square, and slid them back into the drawer. Her smile lingered until she looked at Van. “A little professional advice.”

“I’m worried already.”

“When spending the night with a woman, it is generally considered poor form to rummage through her belongings while she showers.”

“Yeah.” Van rubbed the back of his neck. “I’m sorry. I really didn’t think the Hotel would recreate actual mementos. Furniture, sure. Maybe books. Stuff you remembered being there. I didn’t expect photographs tucked in drawers.”

Katherine pushed the drawer closed. “Apparently the reproduction is more thorough than either of us expected.”

“Still shouldn’t have opened it.”

“No, probably not.” Her mouth curved. “On the other hand, this is the Master Suite. I can hardly tell the Master not to touch his own things.”

The phrase escaped before either of them seemed to hear it. Then Katherine’s smile stopped. Van’s hand came away from the bookcase, and both of them shifted apart by half a step as their attention found anywhere else in the room.

“Well,” Katherine said after a beat, smoothing one hand down the borrowed shirt. “You’ve now seen the criminal archive.”

“Very incriminating.”

She pointed toward the couch. “Sit down before you find my tax records.”

Van obeyed. Katherine joined him, folding one leg beneath herself as she settled into the corner of the old couch. The movement drew the oversized shirt across her thighs, but she seemed more interested in finding the exact place where the cushions gave way than in what the fabric was doing. For a little while they sat with the city noise beneath the windows and the odd domestic quiet of a room that had been reconstructed from memory.

Van glanced toward the closed drawer. “Was it always like that?”

“What?”

“Being different people. You can decide you look like somebody else and then just... do it.”

Katherine tipped her head. “Not somebody else, usually. People always assume exact imitation is the interesting part. It can be useful, but copying an existing face is artistically dull.”

“Artistically?”

“Of course. If I need a fifty-year-old accountant who looks exhausted by life but still takes pride in her shoes, why would I steal somebody else’s face when I can make her myself?” Katherine lifted her chin when Van stared at her. “There are standards.”

“That is the most Katherine answer possible.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment.”

“Was it fun when you were younger?”

That question slowed her. Katherine looked toward the apartment window before answering. “Sometimes. There are obvious benefits. I could go almost anywhere in public and become very difficult to recognize. Bad haircut before an important event? Gone. Terrible skin? Gone. Someone annoying at a party? Leave the bathroom as another woman and let him spend the rest of the evening wondering where you went.”

Van smiled. “You actually did that?”

“Several times.”

“That’s cheating.”

“It was efficient.” Her expression brightened. “And when I was seventeen, I discovered that almost nobody questions an elderly woman with sufficient confidence.”

Before Van could ask what that meant, Katherine changed. The movement was smooth enough that his eyes had trouble identifying the instant one face became another. Blonde hair shortened and grayed, fine lines formed around her eyes, softness gathered at her cheeks, and her shoulders rounded slightly beneath his shirt. A deeply offended old woman now occupied Katherine’s place on the couch.

She jabbed one finger toward an imaginary clerk and adopted a cracked, furious voice. “Identification? Young man, I have shoes older than you. Do I look like I need your permission to buy a bottle of wine?”

Van folded forward laughing. Katherine made the old woman look even more insulted. “Then I would start searching my purse very slowly while complaining about the collapse of basic respect.”

“No. You were seventeen.”

“Oh, yes. A difficult age.”

Her face smoothed, the gray vanished, and the softer blonde woman returned. Van wiped at one eye. “Did that actually work?”

“Usually.” Katherine smiled brightly. “One cashier asked for identification anyway. I told him I had survived enough nonsense in my life without being interrogated by a boy in a paper hat.”

“You were awful.”

“I was resourceful. And before you ask, yes, I was eventually banned.”

Van laughed again, and this time Katherine joined him. When it faded, she stretched one leg out along the couch. “I got into all kinds of trouble when I was young. Got out of a great deal of it too. Sometimes with the power. Sometimes because people underestimate anyone who looks harmless.”

“And later?”

“Later I grew up.” The humor stayed in her voice but thinned. “Being able to become anyone you need is wonderfully convenient when you are seventeen and being stupid. It becomes more complicated once you have neighbors. Friends. People who recognize the woman living across the hall.”

Van waited rather than interrupting. Katherine brushed a damp strand of hair away from her cheek. “You cannot explain every inconsistency. The brunette they saw leaving your apartment was also you. The woman they met last week does not technically exist. The face you wore yesterday was no more or less real than the one you wore today. Once someone knows what I can do, every little difference becomes a question.”

“So you stopped using it around them.”

“I became careful. People like consistency—a name, a face, a job they can explain to themselves. If a neighbor knew too much, I had to start wondering what she would notice the next time I came home looking different.” Katherine shrugged, as though it were merely a problem of tradecraft. “It is difficult to maintain a cover if the person borrowing sugar can identify six of your faces.”

Van thought about the photographs in the drawer. The faces had changed. The posture had not. “That sounds like a strange kind of loneliness.”

Katherine’s gaze returned to him. For a moment she looked prepared to make a joke, then decided against it. “Loneliness is survivable.”

“That wasn’t really what I asked.”

“No. It wasn’t.”

Van picked at a loose thread near the couch cushion. “Did you ever want out? Out of all of it. Fake names. Different apartments. People not knowing.”

Katherine didn’t answer immediately. Her fingers moved once against the hem of his shirt before she leaned deeper into the cushions. “You have become dangerously inquisitive.”

“That sounded like avoiding the question.”

“It was avoiding the question.” A composed smile returned. “I am trying a new policy of selective honesty.”

Before Van could decide whether to press, Katherine shifted sideways and stretched out along the couch. She lifted both legs and placed her calves across his lap with the easy familiarity of someone settling into a position she had used a thousand times before. “There. Much better. Now we can discuss something less invasive.”

Van stopped moving.

The shirt had ridden higher when she reclined. It still covered her, but only just; bare thighs disappeared beneath the dark fabric close enough to its edge that another careless shift might reveal her underwear. Her legs rested warm and smooth across his lap, and there was no graceful place for Van’s hands that did not feel either too close or too conspicuously far away. He settled them on the back of the couch to either side and fixed his attention on the wall beyond her feet.

She nudged his stomach lightly with one heel. “Van.”

He looked at her.

“I'm in the mood for gossip. So, answer this question.” Her hands folded comfortably behind her head. “Which contestant do you actually like?”

* * *

Cassie had been watching Fiona for nearly ten minutes. She was acting like nothing had happened. It would have been a convincing performance if Cassie had not spent most of the week in such close proximity. At present Fiona was gathering toiletries for the shower with far more attention than the task deserved, checking twice for a hairbrush she was already holding. Cassie sat near the foot of her own bed and tugged absently at the rebellious hem of her shirt.

“You okay?”

Fiona glanced back. “Of course I’m okay.” When Cassie did not answer, she added a bottle to the small bundle in her arms and started toward the bathroom. “I’m going to take a shower.”

Cassie stood. “Hey.” Fiona kept moving until Cassie caught her lightly by the upper arm. She stopped, looked down at the hand, and then turned fully toward Cassie. Whatever joke Cassie had prepared disappeared when Fiona saw her face.

“I mean it,” Cassie said.

Fiona’s expression softened. She took Cassie’s wrist and gently lifted the hand from her arm, keeping hold of it for a second rather than pushing it away. “I know. And I’m really okay.”

“You were kind of losing your shit earlier.”

“I am aware.”

“Good. I was worried maybe you missed it.”

Fiona gave her a tired look, but there was no anger in it. She leaned one hip against the dresser and let the toiletries rest against her side. “I was going a little crazy for a while. Everything kept stacking up—Van, Lizzy, the points, the transformations. Every time I thought I understood what I was angry about, something else happened and I found a new reason. Then I started acting like being angry meant I was the only one thinking clearly.”

Cassie’s brows rose. “That was almost self-awareness.”

Fiona held the brush out threateningly, “Do you want me to finish?”

Cassie mimed zipping her mouth and threw away the imaginary key.

Fiona shook her head, but the corner of her mouth twitched. “I meant what I said to Lizzy. I’m still going to tell people when I think something is dangerous. I’m still not trusting this place. But I’m done treating everyone like they’re going to collapse if I stop watching them for five minutes. I was making myself miserable and doing a pretty good job spreading it around.”

Cassie nodded. The joke drained out of her posture for a moment. “Okay.”

“Okay?” Fiona repeated.

“Yeah. Okay.” Cassie shrugged as if the concern had been nothing. “You better behave, though. I’d hate to have to blast you if you attack somebody.”

Fiona stared at her, then scoffed. “You know your blasts can’t hurt me.”

Cassie’s grin returned. “I could still make you retreat.”

Fiona laughed once. “How?”

“Concentrated plasma. Burn the clothes right off you.”

Fiona’s mouth fell open. Cassie continued before she could respond. “You’d run.”

“You are such a bitch.”

“Maybe. But you’d run.”

“I would not.”

Cassie folded her arms. “Van turns the corner.”

Fiona’s confidence faltered just enough to betray her.

Cassie pointed. “There. Your clothes disappear, Van walks in, and suddenly the unstoppable Fiona Kavanagh discovers tactical withdrawal.”

Fiona started laughing despite herself. “You are a horrible person.”

Fiona pressed the heel of one hand against her forehead. “Fine. I would probably retreat. There is no way I’m letting Van see me naked if I can help it.”

Cassie’s grin went very still.

Fiona saw it developing. “No.”

“You said Van.”

“I know what I said.”

“You specifically said Van.” Cassie leaned against the wall, delight spreading across her face. “So who else gets clearance?”

“Nobody.” Fiona turned toward the bathroom.

Fiona reached the bathroom doorway and looked back. Color had started to climb into her face. “That is absolutely not what I meant, and you know it.”

“I was just asking for clarification,” Cassie cried out pressing the point with a manic grin. “You plan to show off for Katherine?”

“Go to hell.”

Fiona stepped into the bathroom. Cassie called after her, “I’ve already seen you naked, so I’m definitely on the list, right?”

The door started to close. “You can go fuck yourself.”

Cassie laughed. A second later Fiona reopened the door just enough to glare through the gap. “And stop smiling.”

The door shut again. Cassie did not stop smiling.

* * *

Van nearly fell off the couch. “What?”

Katherine’s calves remained across his lap. “You heard me.”

“Nope. Absolutely not.” He shifted as if to stand, and Katherine pressed both heels lightly against his thigh. The gesture could not possibly restrain him, but it interrupted his balance at exactly the wrong moment and turned his escape into an awkward half-rise before he dropped back onto the cushion.

Katherine laughed. “I barely moved.”

“That is an interrogation technique.”

She settled comfortably again. “Then answer.”

Van rubbed one hand across his face. “That’s not fair.”

“What part?”

“All of you are prisoners.” The humor had left his voice before he intended it to. He gestured vaguely between them and the rest of the Hotel beyond the apartment walls. “The whole system keeps pushing everyone toward me. I’m not going to sit here ranking which prisoners I like best.”

Katherine watched him without interrupting. When he finished, she lifted one shoulder. “I didn’t ask for a ranking. Being prisoners doesn’t prevent us from having opinions about one another. I like some of the girls more than others. I trust some more. Some I understand better. There are people in this building I would choose to spend an afternoon with before others.”

“That isn’t the same thing.”

“No, but liking someone is not a marriage proposal either.” Katherine studied him for another second, then let a small smile return. “I suppose that means you don’t like Lizzy.”

Van dropped his hand. “What? Why wouldn’t I like Lizzy?”

“You said liking contestants was unfair.”

Van opened his mouth and recognized the trap one second too late. “Of course I like Lizzy.”

Katherine laughed in triumph.

“Oh, come on.” Van leaned his head back against the couch. “That doesn’t count.”

“It absolutely counts. You like Lizzy,” she smiled like a cat staring at a trapped mouse. “Which others?”

Van looked at her. Katherine looked pleasantly expectant. “You are way too good at this.”

“I’m barely trying.”

Van shifted, and Katherine’s smile sharpened before he could stop himself. He lifted her legs from his lap, stood, and carefully set her feet back on the couch. “I need a shower before bed.”

“Of course.” Katherine sat up and tugged the hem of his shirt back into place over her thighs. “One day, I am very patient.”

They moved into the absurdly enlarged bedroom together. Van opened his dresser and collected a clean shirt and shorts while Katherine leaned against one bedpost and watched him. “You know, you don’t have to dress for my benefit. If you normally sleep in your undershorts, you may continue doing so. I am forty-five years old, Van. I promise I can survive the sight of a man in underwear without attacking him in the night.”

He laughed. “How reassuring.”

“I thought so.”

“I’m sleeping dressed.”

Van gathered the rest of his clothes and headed for the bathroom. Behind him, Katherine called, “And I still intend to get the other names eventually.”

He closed the door on her laughter.

The shower gave Van too much time to think. He stood beneath the hot water and tried to decide whether Katherine had been flirting with him all night. There was evidence: the arm through his on the boardwalk, the way she kept leaning close, the calves across his lap, the question about his underwear. On the other hand, Katherine had also spent the evening laughing about a broken radiator and showing him a spatula. Something about the old couch, the cheap cabinets, and the bad wall art had loosened her in ways he had never seen around the others.

Maybe she was naturally physical when she felt safe. Maybe she was flirting. Maybe both were true. Van had spent very little time alone with her before tonight, and most of what he knew came from watching Katherine operate in rooms full of other people, where she always seemed to measure the conversation several steps ahead. Tonight she had laughed until her eyes watered because the Hotel made her old bedroom too large. He didn’t have enough information to turn that into a theory about seduction, and he certainly didn’t believe she was trying to lure him into bed.

By the time he rinsed the shampoo from his hair, that was the only conclusion he trusted: he didn’t know enough.

Van finished, dried off, changed, and opened the bathroom door.

Katherine was topless.

He stopped just outside the doorway. She stood beside the open guest drawer near the bed, turned partly toward him, with his borrowed shirt lying on the comforter behind her. In both hands she held a black satin teddy against the front of her body, apparently comparing its proportions to the shape she currently wore. The garment covered very little while hanging from her hands and considerably less of Katherine.

Her eyes met Van’s.

Gold light flashed into existence above the bed.

Van shut his eyes. “Oh, come on.”

SYSTEM NOTIFICATION

Katherine Wren

Seen Topless by the Master +2 VP

The teddy hit the floor. Van turned away at once as fabric rustled behind him. “I’m sorry. I really thought you were done changing.”

“So did I,” Katherine said. “This is my fault.”

There was a hurried scrape of cloth and the soft thump of a drawer being bumped by somebody’s knee. Katherine muttered something unkind about the entire concept of enchanted reality shows. After several seconds she said, “Fine.”

Katherine had dragged his shirt over her head again. Damp blonde hair had become trapped under the collar on one side, and she pulled it free with both hands while the color in her face slowly receded. The guest drawer remained open beside her.

“I really didn’t know,” Van said again.

“I know. This one was mine.” She sat on the edge of the bed and gestured toward the drawer. “I got curious.”

“About the lingerie?”

“About whether the drawer changed.” Katherine looked down at herself, then at the discarded teddy. “The clothes I had this morning were fitted to the leaner body I had been wearing all week. This shape is different enough that I wondered whether the guest drawer would still contain clothing for the old measurements or whether the Hotel adjusted it when I changed.” She paused helplessly then, “apparently it did, for whatever that's worth.”

Van rubbed the back of his neck. “Okay, points for thoroughness I suppose.” That pulled a reluctant laugh out of him, and Katherine’s shoulders eased slightly. Van moved toward his side of the enormous bed. “We just have to move past it. Something kind of similar happened with Naomi.”

Katherine looked at him.

“Not exactly similar,” Van corrected quickly. “She was changing, I saw her by accident, and I turned around. That’s all I meant.”

“I know. We all received the notification.” Katherine pushed the guest drawer shut with her foot. “By the time this entire experience is finished, privacy may become something we tell stories about.”

They pulled back the covers from opposite sides. The bed was so wide that both of them could lie near the edges with an unreasonable amount of empty mattress between them. Van turned onto his side facing away from the middle. Across the bed, Katherine did the same.

“Good night, Van.”

“Good night, Katherine.”

Traffic filtered faintly through the false apartment beyond the bedroom. Neither of them sounded remotely close to sleep.

* * *

Naomi sat naked at the vanity and watched herself breathe.

The room was quieter without Katherine, though not entirely empty of her. A book sat near the edge of the desk. A hair tie had been left beside the mirror. The faint scent of Katherine’s soap still lingered near the bathroom. Naomi had shared this room with her for almost a week and had never before had the entire night to herself.

She lowered her hands into her lap and focused on the power beneath her skin. That was still the easiest way to imagine it: not gone just waiting. When she reached for it deliberately, the familiar pressure responded. There had been a time when simply feeling it wake would have made every muscle in her body tighten. Tonight, naked and alone, it rose to meet her attention and stopped exactly where she wanted it to stop.

With clothing on, especially when too much of her body was covered, the power always seemed more concentrated at the places where skin remained available. Here there was no single opening for it to crowd toward. Her whole body carried the pressure, and the pressure stayed quiet.

She drew in a slow breath, reached for the power again, and let it settle. In this room, in this state, she had complete control of it.

The knowledge was difficult to trust precisely because it felt so simple.

Naomi stood and looked toward the robe hanging near the bathroom. Habit told her to take it. Katherine would not be returning tonight, though, and the distance between the vanity and the shower was only a few steps. More importantly, covering herself now would mean treating the state that gave her the best control as something she had to escape even when no one was present.

She left the robe where it was.

The bathroom mirror caught her before she stepped into the shower. Naomi’s eyes moved away automatically, then returned. She was still learning how to look at herself without immediately converting skin into risk: bare arm meant danger, bare shoulder meant danger, bare back meant danger. She had always hated to see herself uncovered because she knew it meant danger.

Tonight the sight in the mirror had another meaning. More exposure meant more control. Her body had not become harmless, and Mirel had never promised that Power Valve would make every context safe, but now Naomi could stand uncovered and feel the ability entirely answer to her.

She turned on the shower and stepped under the water. Warmth loosened muscles sore from training, and for several minutes she let herself concentrate on ordinary things: shampoo, water, the ache between her shoulders, the luxury of knowing no one needed anything from her. She had worked shampoo through half her hair when gold light appeared through her closed eyelids.

Naomi opened her eyes. A System notification hovered beyond the shower glass.

SYSTEM NOTIFICATION

Katherine Wren

Seen Topless by the Master +2 VP

Naomi stopped with both hands in her hair.

Katherine. Van. Topless.

The points themselves barely registered. What caught her was the image her mind supplied before she could stop it: Katherine in the Master Suite, comfortable enough to undress, Van there with her.

Had it been an accident? Probably. Maybe not. Katherine had spent the entire evening with him. Did Katherine like him—or at least find him interesting, which in Katherine’s case could lead almost anywhere?

The notification faded.

Naomi stayed beneath the water with her hair only half rinsed and waited for another one.

Several seconds passed before she recognized that she was waiting for another screen to appear. “What am I doing?”

If Katherine chose to sleep with Van, that was not Naomi’s business. Katherine was an adult. Van was an adult. Whatever either of them chose inside the limits of this place belonged to them, and Naomi had no right to sit in the shower waiting for the System to announce each step in the process.

She rinsed the shampoo from her hair. No second notification appeared.

Relief loosened something in her chest. Naomi’s hands stopped beneath the water.

That reaction was harder to dismiss than the waiting. Why was she relieved? Concern for Katherine could explain part of it; the Hotel had trained all of them to expect intimacy to become spectacle, and Katherine had spent the evening being pushed toward Van. But another possibility sat beside it, quieter and more personal. Naomi might be relieved because Van had not slept with someone else.

Those were not the same things.

She leaned one hand against the shower wall and tried to put the question aside. The power beneath her skin remained quiet despite the change in her breathing, and that fact pulled her attention somewhere she had avoided for years.

Naomi had organized most of her adult life around the belief that physical intimacy was dangerous. There had been no metaphor in it. A hand on someone’s arm could hurt them. A kiss could become catastrophic before either person understood what was happening. Falling asleep beside another body was not romantic; it was irresponsible. She had been able to want closeness and resent other people for having it, but wanting it didn't make it safe.

Power Valve had already cracked that certainty. Mirel had held out a hand and Naomi had touched her without taking anything. Van had been close to her and survived moments that would once have terrified her. Every test had been small, controlled, and surrounded by precautions, but each one made the old absolute rule harder to maintain.

Tonight was different again. Nude, alone, and relaxed, she could reach for the drain and feel it answer without straining toward release. The safest state available to her happened to be the state she had spent years treating as impossible vulnerability.

If that control held with another person nearby, physical intimacy might no longer belong entirely to other people.

Naomi’s pulse quickened as the thought opened possibilities she had trained herself not to examine. She could kiss someone without counting seconds until she needed to pull away. She could let hands rest on her skin without translating every point of contact into danger. She could lie beside somebody without wondering what sleeve, glove, or sheet had shifted during the night.

Van entered the thought before she could ask why.

Naomi closed her eyes, and that only made the image clearer. Would he want her if the danger were removed? Not because the Hotel made him spend time with her. Not because he was trying to prove she wasn’t a monster. Would he look at her body and actually want what he saw?

Heat climbed into her face. Her breathing had grown faster, her pulse loud enough that she could feel it in her throat. She became abruptly, painfully aware that the question was no longer theoretical in the distant way it had been before the Hotel. She could imagine standing in front of Van by choice rather than because a blindfold dissolved at the wrong moment. She could imagine him touching her and not getting hurt.

“Oh my God,” Naomi whispered.

She turned the water cooler. It did very little. After another moment she shut the shower off completely and stood in the sudden quiet, naked, flushed, and intensely grateful that Katherine was somewhere else tonight. At least no one could watch her discover that control over her power had created an entirely new category of problem.

Naomi reached for a towel and wrapped it around her hair rather than her body. The choice did not feel daring. It felt practical, which might have been stranger. She dried off, returned to the bedroom, and climbed beneath the sheets.

In the dark she looked across the empty bed and let the unanswered question remain unanswered. She didn’t know whether her relief had been about Katherine or Van. She did know that for the first time in years, physical intimacy no longer felt like a fantasy whose danger made the answer irrelevant.

That realization followed her into sleep.

BONUS PICS FROM THE INFERNAL COURT