The guest room at the Goldleaf residence was offensive.
Not because it was bad.
Because it was perfect.
Khan stood in the doorway for several seconds, staring.
They had arrived after dark, following a second dinner at a riverside tavern where nobody had theories about pudding and the stew cost less than Aurielle's water. Lillia had led them through a gate, across a courtyard with an actual fountain, past three servants who bowed to her and pretended not to smell the sewer on her guests, and up a staircase wide enough to drive a cart up.
"Guest wing," she had said, as though that were a normal thing for a house to have.
Then she had pointed at two doors side by side.
"Khan. Miriel."
And then she had pointed at her own door, much farther down the hall, and said, "I'll be there, unless I'm somewhere else," which Khan had filed as a suspicious statement.
Now he stood in the doorway of his room, reconsidering his position on the merchant class.
The room was larger than some apartments he had rented on Earth.
A polished wooden floor.
Thick curtains.
A writing desk with actual ink that didn't look coagulated.
A wardrobe large enough to hide a small conspiracy.
A fireplace already lit.
A tray on the side table with bread, cheese and a pitcher of something that smelled like apples.
Khan did the math automatically.
Room.
Fuel.
Staff.
Food.
Laundry.
Opportunity cost of the floor space in a district where even sidewalks looked wealthy.
He arrived at a nightly figure and resolved never to say it out loud in this house.
And beyond a carved divider...
A private bathroom.
Not a tub.
A pool.
A large stone bathing pool sunk into the floor, already steaming with hot water.
Khan walked toward it slowly.
"This is absurd."
The System appeared.
[Guest accommodation quality: Exceptional.]
No argument.
[Host emotional resistance decreasing.]
Don't ruin this.
[Estimated nightly market value of current accommodation: available on request.]
Do not request it on my behalf.
[Understood.]
Beside the pool sat folded towels.
Fragrant soap.
Shampoo.
Actual shampoo.
Khan picked up the bottle.
Read the label.
Couldn't understand half of it.
Didn't care.
It smelled faintly of cedar and something floral.
He nearly became religious.
He undressed with the efficiency of a man who did not trust the moment to last.
The water was hot enough to sting at first.
Then it wasn't.
Then it was the best thing that had happened to him in this world.
Khan sank until the water reached his chin.
He had not been properly warm in weeks.
On Earth, hot water had been a dial.
He had never thought about it once.
Years of showers spent checking market openings on a phone balanced on the sink.
He had never once just stood in one.
He thought about that for a while.
Then he thought about the rest of the day, because the water was warm enough that he could afford to.
The sewer.
The iron coins.
The one-horned demon.
Miriel's face when she said her own name like a confession.
Lillia against the wall, white as paper, and then stepping away from it.
The restaurant.
The middle fingers.
The way the two of them had walked arm in arm the rest of the evening, as if they had agreed to something without saying it out loud.
Khan let his head rest against the stone rim.
It had been a terrible day.
He was surprised by how little he minded.
[Host stress indicators: Declining.]
I'm aware.
[Host appears content.]
Don't use that word again.
[Synonym available.]
Don't use any of them.
----------------
Twenty minutes later, Khan emerged from the bath feeling as though a layer of road dust, condensed milk, sewer atmosphere and accumulated poor decisions had been scraped from his soul.
His hair was clean.
His skin no longer smelled like Oakhaven's lower drainage network.
The faint marks along his jaw, where a sleeping princess's horn had once tried to redesign his face, had finally faded.
He felt almost sentimental about that.
He suppressed it.
The holed coin pendant rested back against his chest.
He pulled on a loose sleeping shirt someone had left folded on the bed.
It fit.
He decided not to ask how.
Then he approached the bed.
The bed was enormous.
There were pillows.
Several.
Why did one person need this many pillows?
He counted.
Seven.
Seven pillows for one human head.
Somewhere, a pillow merchant was very rich because of the Goldleaf family.
Khan respected that.
He sat down.
The mattress swallowed him.
Not metaphorically.
His body sank so far that he briefly lost visual contact with his own knees.
Khan froze.
Then slowly lay back.
The bed accepted him.
Completely.
Warm blanket.
Soft mattress.
Clean sheets.
No carriage wheels.
No horse noises.
No horns scratching his jaw.
No corrupt guards.
No narcotics.
No rebel demons.
No restaurant manager explaining why pudding had a social class.
Khan stared at the ceiling.
His muscles loosened.
His shoulders stopped existing.
His spine, which had spent a week filing formal complaints, finally withdrew legal action.
The System appeared.
[Host recovery conditions optimized.]
Khan closed his eyes.
"My soul is healing."
[No soul repair function detected.]
"Shut up."
Silence.
Beautiful.
Sacred.
Perfect.
The fire crackled.
Somewhere far below, a servant laughed at something.
The house settled around him, large and quiet and expensive.
Khan began, very slowly, to fall asleep.
Then someone spoke through the wall.
"Lillia."
Miriel.
Khan opened one eye.
The wall beside his bed separated his guest room from another.
Apparently, Goldleaf architecture had invested heavily in beds and forgotten about sound insulation.
Lillia's voice answered.
"Just once."
Khan remembered I'll be there, unless I'm somewhere else.
He had been right to be suspicious.
"No."
"Please."
"No."
Khan stared at the wall.
His curiosity lifted its head.
He immediately pushed it back down.
Not my business.
Silence.
Then Lillia again.
"You've been hiding them the entire trip."
Khan's eyes opened fully.
Horns.
Ah.
He stared at the ceiling.
Still not my business.
"But now I know what you are," Lillia continued.
Miriel sighed.
"That doesn't mean you need to see them."
"I absolutely need to see them."
"Need?"
"Academically."
Khan smirked.
Of course.
Lillia had discovered a demon princess, and her first response after surviving the revelation was, apparently, research.
She had said she had questions.
Khan had assumed she meant eventually.
He had underestimated her.
Merchant heiress.
Scholar.
Natural predator of privacy.
Khan pulled the blanket higher.
He should sleep.
Definitely sleep.
Then Miriel said:
"They're just horns."
Lillia made a sound of outrage.
"Royal demonic horns are not 'just horns.'"
Khan stopped trying to sleep.
Curiosity won.
Again.
This trait was going to kill him twice.
----------------
In the room next door, Miriel stood beside the mirror.
Arms crossed.
She had bathed too.
Her crimson hair was still damp, loose down her back, darkening the shoulders of a borrowed nightgown that was very soft and very much not hers.
Lillia sat on the edge of the bed with the alert posture of someone attending a rare artifact unveiling.
She had brought a notebook.
She had not opened it yet.
But she had brought it.
Miriel had noticed.
Miriel looked deeply unimpressed.
"You realize how ridiculous you look."
"I've been waiting."
"For ten minutes."
"Exactly."
Miriel sighed.
The illusionist's headband rested around her forehead.
She touched the clasp.
Then paused.
Her fingers stayed there.
She had taken it off only once in front of anyone else.
That afternoon.
In a sewer.
Because words had failed.
This was different.
There was no rebel bleeding on a counter.
No emergency.
No reason except that Lillia had asked.
That made it harder, somehow.
"Lillia."
"Yes?"
"If you tell anyone..."
Lillia's excitement faded.
She set the notebook down on the bed beside her.
"I won't."
The answer came immediately.
No teasing.
No hesitation.
"Not my father. Not the staff. Not the academy. Not anyone." She paused. "Not even in the notebook. I'll write it in a cipher."
"You have a cipher?"
"I have three. Merchant families are paranoid."
Miriel studied her.
Lillia held her gaze and did not look away.
Then Miriel nodded.
She removed the headband.
The illusion dissolved.
Lillia's eyes widened.
In the sewer, she had seen them for a heartbeat, through fear and dust and bad light, and then Miriel had fastened the headband again with shaking hands.
She had not really seen them at all.
She saw them now.
Two black horns curved backward from Miriel's temples.
Not huge.
Not monstrous.
Regal.
Smooth.
Dark enough to swallow most of the lamplight, except along the edges, where faint crimson undertones showed beneath the surface.
They swept upward slightly before bending back in a balanced arc.
Not decoration.
Not ornament.
Something natural.
Something ancient.
They rested against Miriel's head with the visual symmetry of a crown that had grown rather than been forged.
Lillia forgot to breathe.
Miriel shifted uncomfortably.
Her hand came halfway up, as if to cover them, and then stopped because there was no hood to pull.
"What?"
"They're beautiful."
Miriel blinked.
The response caught her off guard.
She had braced for a lot of things.
Fascination.
Unease.
The polite, careful face people made when they were trying not to look at something.
She had not braced for that.
Nobody had called her horns beautiful since she crossed into human lands.
Nobody had seen them.
She had spent months checking her hood in every gust of wind, and then weeks touching the headband in crowds, treating the most natural part of her own body as a weapon that could go off by accident.
Something tightened in her throat.
She looked at the mirror instead of at Lillia.
Lillia stood.
Slowly.
"They look like a crown."
Miriel's expression changed.
Barely.
"That's an old description."
"Really?"
"Royal horns are sometimes called blood crowns."
Lillia's scholar brain fully activated.
"Are the shapes hereditary?"
"Mostly."
"Do noble families have distinct patterns?"
"Yes."
"Can horns identify lineage?"
"Sometimes."
"Mana conductivity?"
Miriel stared.
"Lillia."
"Sorry."
She was not sorry.
She picked up the notebook again.
Then put it back down, as if remembering a promise.
A pause.
"Can I touch them?"
"No."
The answer arrived with remarkable speed.
Lillia stopped.
"Why not?"
"They're sensitive."
Through the wall, Khan smirked.
His jaw remembered the scratches.
Sensitive.
Interesting.
They had not seemed sensitive when they were redesigning his face on a moving carriage.
Then again, he had not been the one with the horns.
Miriel continued.
"More than bone. They're connected to mana channels."
Lillia's eyes lit up.
That explanation had been a catastrophic mistake.
"Mana channels?"
Miriel immediately regretted having a mouth.
"Yes."
"So physical contact produces magical sensation?"
"No."
A pause.
"Not exactly."
Lillia leaned forward.
Miriel stepped back.
"No."
"I only want to examine the texture."
"No."
"One touch."
"No."
"Scientific curiosity."
"Scientific harassment."
"That's not a recognized field."
"It is now."
Khan covered his mouth to stop himself laughing.
Poor Miriel.
She had survived a rebellion only to be cornered by academia.
----------------
Five minutes later, negotiations had failed.
Mostly because Lillia did not understand the concept of defeat.
"Just the tip."
"No."
"The base?"
"Worse."
"Why?"
Miriel's face reddened.
"Because I said so."
Lillia circled slightly.
Miriel turned with her.
It was, Khan thought, listening to the floorboards, exactly the footwork of two duelists who had both read the same book on dueling and disagreed about the conclusion.
"Lillia."
"I haven't touched anything."
"You're planning."
"Observing."
"You've learned that word from Khan."
"Useful word."
Miriel groaned.
Through the wall, Khan silently approved.
Then came a pause.
Rustling.
Lillia's voice, quieter.
Not the scholar now.
Just Lillia.
"Please?"
Miriel looked at her.
Lillia was standing very still, hands clasped in front of her.
Not reaching.
Waiting.
Asking.
Miriel thought of a hand on her sleeve in a restaurant full of nobles.
Shaking slightly.
Holding on anyway.
She exhaled.
"One touch."
Khan raised an eyebrow.
Dangerous concession.
"One," Miriel repeated.
"Brief."
"Yes."
"And then you stop asking."
"...Probably."
"Lillia."
"Yes. Fine."
Miriel sat on the edge of the bed.
Lillia sat beside her.
Close.
Closer than she needed to be for an academic inspection.
Neither of them mentioned it.
The fire had burned low. The lamp on the dresser threw a warm, gold light over the bed, over Miriel's damp crimson hair, over the dark curve of the horns.
Miriel lowered her head slightly.
An offering.
Reluctant.
But an offering.
Lillia lifted one hand.
Slowly.
The way she might have reached for a bird that had landed on her windowsill.
Her fingertips hovered.
Miriel could feel them before they arrived. A faint pressure in the air. The warmth of a human hand coming closer.
She closed her eyes.
Then Lillia touched the base of her left horn.
Lightly.
Barely at all.
"Ahn..."
The sound left Miriel before she knew it was there.
Small.
Breathless.
Entirely involuntary.
It felt as though someone had struck a bell somewhere inside her skull, and the note had run straight down the back of her neck, along her spine, into her fingertips. Her hands closed on the sheets. Her shoulders drew up. Heat bloomed under her skin, slow and spreading, like wine poured into warm water.
Through the wall, Khan's head turned.
Miriel's voice.
Very small.
Very involuntary.
Khan stared at the wall.
What the hell?
On the other side, Lillia whispered, fascinated.
"It's warm."
"Stop."
"I barely touched it."
"You touched the base."
"Is that bad?"
"Yes."
It was not bad.
That was the problem.
Lillia did not move her hand.
She had expected horn to feel like bone. Cool and dead and smooth, like the ivory handle of her father's letter opener.
It was not like that at all.
It was warm. Warmer than skin. And beneath the polished surface, something moved. A faint hum of mana, threading up through the horn to meet her fingertip, as if the horn were curious about her too.
Lillia moved her finger.
Half an inch.
Along the curve.
Miriel made a sharper sound.
Her back straightened. Her lips parted. Her eyes opened, unfocused, violet gone dark in the lamplight.
Lillia's breath caught.
She had meant to look at the horn.
She found herself looking at Miriel instead.
At the flush climbing her throat.
At the pulse fluttering visibly beneath her jaw.
At the way she had leaned, very slightly, toward Lillia's hand instead of away from it.
Lillia's own heart was beating far too fast for research.
Through the wall, Khan's eyebrows rose.
The System appeared.
[Adjacent-room acoustic activity detected.]
No.
[Potential physiological relevance detected.]
Absolutely not.
[Live captions enabled for Host accessibility.]
What?
[Miriel: (sharp intake of breath)]
TURN THAT OFF.
[Captions disabled.]
Thank you.
[Audio description enabled.]
INTERNET EXPLORER.
[Audio description disabled. All accessibility features disabled. Host has chosen the hard way.]
Khan pressed both palms against his eyes.
Next door, Lillia sounded genuinely amazed.
And slightly out of breath.
"The mana response changes when I move my finger."
"Lillia."
Miriel's voice had dropped.
Lower.
Rougher.
A warning that did not quite manage to be one.
"Does this happen with all demons?"
"I don't know."
"You don't know?"
"I don't touch other demons' horns!"
Fair.
Khan nodded at the ceiling.
Excellent clarification.
Next door, Lillia went very still.
"So nobody has ever..."
"No."
The word came out of Miriel small and hot and honest.
"Nobody."
Silence.
Lillia looked at her own hand, resting on the curve of a demon princess's horn.
At Miriel, flushed and trembling and not pulling away.
She was the first.
The realization went through her like a spark down a fuse.
Her cheeks burned.
Her fingertip was still there.
Somehow, so was her thumb now, resting against the base where horn met skin, where the warmth was strongest. She did not remember deciding to put it there.
Miriel inhaled sharply.
Her head tipped, just slightly, until her shoulder pressed against Lillia's.
Then:
"Stop."
"I'm stopping."
"Your hand is still there."
"I'm observing the reaction."
"With your hand."
"Yes."
"Lillia."
Neither of them moved.
Lillia's thumb shifted.
A small circle.
Purely scientific.
Miriel's breath broke apart in the middle.
Through the wall, Khan slowly pulled the blanket over his face.
This was becoming a problem.
Not ethically.
Mechanically.
There was something deeply wrong with overhearing this.
[Careless Whisper (System Remix): Adjacent Room Edition now available.]
DON'T YOU DARE.
[Saxophone tuning.]
I WILL FIND YOUR SOURCE CODE.
[Saxophone untuned.]
He tried focusing on numbers.
Gold.
Silver.
Milk margins.
Three gold, forty-six silver, seventy-one copper.
Counterfeit transformation.
Narcotics exchange ratio.
Anything.
Three gold, forty-six silver, seventy-one copper.
Three gold, forty-six...
[Host has recited the same balance nine times.]
It's a calming balance.
[Balance unchanged across all nine recitations. Host is not generating returns.]
Then Miriel made another strangled sound through the wall.
Khan's concentration died instantly.
His entire body felt strange.
Warm.
Restless.
Too awake.
He frowned.
No.
Absolutely not.
He shifted under the blanket.
Something shifted back.
Khan froze.
Very slowly, he raised his head.
Looked downward.
The blanket had developed architecture.
A distinct rise.
A tent.
Khan stared.
His jaw dropped.
No.
No, no, no.
He lifted the blanket slightly.
Looked.
Then immediately dropped it.
"Oh, you have got to be kidding me."
The System appeared.
[Physiological response detected.]
Go away.
[Host reproductive function: Normal.]
I didn't ask.
[Structural assessment of blanket: Load-bearing.]
I SAID I DIDN'T ASK.
[Circulatory efficiency: Improved compared to previous incarnation.]
Khan stared at the notification.
Back on Earth, his little brother had behaved like an old sedan.
Reliable, theoretically.
But occasionally requiring favorable weather, patience and perhaps spiritual encouragement before deciding to start.
[Previous unit: Required favorable market conditions.]
This body?
Apparently someone had replaced the engine.
Sports car.
No brakes.
No warning lights.
No respect for context.
[Current unit: Responds to rumors.]
Khan looked betrayed.
"I am forty years old."
[Correction: Current biological age: 18.]
"Mentally."
[Biologically: 18.]
"That is not helping."
[Recommended action: Cold bath.]
Khan turned his head.
Beyond the carved divider, the bathing pool steamed gently in the firelight.
Hot.
Heated by something under the floor.
Kept hot all night, presumably, because the Goldleaf family believed guests should never suffer.
"It's heated."
[Correct.]
[Goldleaf hospitality has failed Host.]
Another small sound came through the wall.
Khan considered knocking.
Three sharp knocks.
Message delivered.
Problem solved.
Except that knocking would mean admitting he had been listening.
To all of it.
Since "Lillia."
[Game theory analysis initiated.]
[Option A: Knock. Both parties learn Host has heard everything. Host must attend breakfast.]
[Option B: Do not knock. Host continues hearing everything. Host must attend breakfast.]
[Conclusion: Both options are losing positions.]
"Is there an option C?"
[Option C: Relocate to the stables.]
Khan gave it serious consideration.
Then he grabbed a pillow.
One of seven.
He finally understood why rich people needed so many.
He put it over his face.
It muffled nothing.
The wall had been designed by someone who hated him personally.
The System appeared above the pillow anyway.
[Suggestion: Distraction.]
Excellent.
Finance.
Think about finance.
[Counterfeit holdings.]
Good.
[Taxation.]
Better.
[Quarterly audit procedures.]
Getting there.
[Compliance paperwork. Fourteen-page form. Font size: small.]
Almost.
[Previous divorce.]
Khan pulled the pillow away.
"Too effective."
The response began to subside almost immediately.
Khan stared.
"You weaponized my divorce."
[Successful distraction confirmed.]
He didn't know whether to be impressed or offended.
Probably both.
[Distraction method saved for future use.]
"Do not save that."
[Saved.]
[Filed under: Emergency Protocols.]
"Delete the folder."
[Folder is now password protected.]
"What's the password?"
[Careless Whisper.]
Next door, Miriel's voice suddenly rose.
"Enough!"
Lillia laughed.
"I stopped!"
"You did not."
"I learned something."
"You lost privileges."
"Temporarily?"
"Forever."
There was a thump.
A pillow, Khan suspected.
Lillia's laughter went muffled, then free again.
Then Miriel was laughing too.
Not the strangled sounds from before.
Real laughter.
Startled out of her, the way it had been outside the restaurant.
Khan lay still and listened to it through the wall.
Two girls who, at noon, had stood on opposite sides of a sewer alley.
One pressed against stone.
One holding a bloody sword.
Now they were throwing pillows in a borrowed bedroom.
He thought of Lillia's hand on Miriel's sleeve at Aurielle.
He thought of Miriel, this afternoon, fastening her headband with shaking fingers because she was afraid of what Lillia would see.
And now Lillia had seen.
And had called it beautiful.
And Miriel was laughing.
Khan found that he was smiling at the ceiling.
He did not try to stop it.
Then he remembered the last ten minutes and stopped anyway.
Khan covered his eyes.
The absurdity finally broke him.
A laugh escaped.
Quiet.
Exhausted.
Disbelieving.
He had spent twenty years mastering emotional control.
Markets could crash.
Currencies could collapse.
People could scream around him.
He remained rational.
Then he reincarnated.
And within two weeks, a demon princess's horns had destroyed decades of professional composure through one poorly insulated wall.
The System appeared.
[Current assessment:]
[Host emotional discipline remains intact.]
Khan lowered his hand.
Really?
[Sexual discipline: Under review.]
"Internet Explorer."
[Yes?]
"Delete system logs."
[Request denied.]
"Delete tonight's logs."
[Request denied.]
"Delete the last fifteen minutes."
[Request denied. Logs are required for performance tracking.]
"What performance?"
[Unexpected performance upgrade: confirmed.]
Khan stared at the notification for a long, cold moment.
"I hate you."
[Noted.]
He stared at the ceiling.
The luxurious bed no longer felt quite as peaceful.
Still excellent.
But compromised.
Next door, the laughter faded.
Quiet voices.
Too soft to make out now.
Lillia's, then Miriel's, then Lillia's again.
The scrape of a chair.
Something that might have been the notebook opening.
Then Lillia asked, at normal volume:
"Can I see your tail?"
Miriel answered instantly.
"No."
Khan sat upright.
"No," he agreed to the wall.
Silence.
Total silence.
The kind of silence that had suddenly understood something.
Then, very slowly, from the other side of the wall:
"...Khan?"
Miriel.
Khan lay back down.
Fast.
He pulled the blanket to his chin.
He closed his eyes.
He breathed in the slow, even rhythm of a man who had been asleep for hours and had heard absolutely nothing.
"Khan," Miriel said again, louder.
He snored.
Once.
Unconvincingly.
On the other side of the wall, Lillia made a sound like a kettle.
Then her muffled laughter started again.
Miriel groaned.
Long.
Deep.
The groan of a princess who was going to have to look him in the eye at breakfast.
Khan kept his eyes shut.
He had wanted rest.
Apparently that had been overly ambitious.
----------------
Breakfast was served in a sunroom.
Of course it was.
Glass walls.
White tablecloth.
A view of the garden, where a gardener was trimming a hedge into a shape that might have been a swan or might have been a legal dispute.
Khan arrived first.
He had not slept much.
The bed had been perfect.
The bed had not been the problem.
He sat.
A servant poured him tea.
He drank it and stared at the garden with the expression of a man who had seen things.
Lillia arrived second.
She took one look at him and sat down very quickly, very far away, and became extremely interested in butter.
Miriel arrived last.
Her headband was on.
Her hood was not.
Her face was the color of her hair.
She sat down across from Khan.
She did not look at him.
He did not look at her.
Lillia looked at Miriel's headband.
Then at her toast.
Then at the headband again.
Miriel noticed.
Her face achieved a new shade of red.
The servant poured her tea.
Nobody said anything.
The gardener clipped the hedge.
Clip. Clip. Clip.
Finally, Lillia cleared her throat.
"Did you sleep well, Khan?"
"No."
"Was the bed too soft?"
"The bed was excellent."
"Then what was the problem?"
Khan set his cup down.
"The walls."
Miriel made a small sound into her tea.
Lillia went pink.
"The walls?"
"They're decorative," Khan said. "Structurally, they exist. Acoustically, they're a rumor."
Silence.
Miriel put down her cup.
She looked at him at last.
Her eyes were very violet and very steady, in the specific way of someone who had decided to meet her execution with dignity.
"How much," she said, "did you hear?"
Khan considered several answers.
He considered lying.
He considered the truth.
He considered the System, which was hovering at the edge of his vision with an expression he could not see but could somehow feel.
[Log available for review.]
Absolutely not.
"Enough," Khan said, "to agree with your position on tails."
Lillia choked on her toast.
Miriel closed her eyes.
"I'm going back to my hometown."
"It's in the middle of a rebellion."
"It's quieter."
Lillia was laughing into her napkin now, helplessly, shoulders shaking.
Miriel glared at her.
"This is your fault."
"It's research."
"It's harassment."
"Scientific harassment," Lillia corrected. "You coined it. I'm citing you."
Khan picked up his tea again.
He looked out at the garden.
At the swan-shaped legal dispute.
At the morning light on the glass.
At the two of them, red-faced and bickering across a table in a house where, yesterday, one of them would not have been sure she was welcome.
He drank his tea.
"For the record," he said, "the horns are beautiful."
Both girls stopped.
Khan did not look away from the garden.
"Lillia was right about that part."
Miriel stared at him.
Her face, impossibly, went redder.
Lillia's mouth fell slightly open.
Then closed.
Then curved into something very pleased and very dangerous.
[Romantic atmosphere: Detected.]
Not now.
Khan put down his cup.
"Also," he added, "I'm requesting a room transfer."
"Denied," said Lillia and Miriel, at exactly the same time.
They looked at each other.
Then they both started laughing again.
Khan sighed.
He reached for the toast.
He had wanted rest.
He had gotten this instead.
He was beginning to suspect it was a better deal.