Chapter Three — An Inch of Distance (continued)

The first raindrop landed directly on the Ambassador's embassy.

Luna watched a dark circle spread through its blue paper roof. Another struck the yellow lantern beside it. Then the sky, apparently offended by the concept of gradual escalation, opened.

“Oh, absolutely not.”

She was already moving when Asher caught her hand. Not to stop her. He had seen where she was looking.

“Left clip,” he said. “I'll get the right.”

They reached the display as the wind whipped three rows of lanterns sideways. Luna rose on her toes to free the yellow one. The cord snagged, and she had to choose between saving the paper and tearing it. Asher leaned past her, his jacket darkening beneath the rain, and steadied the whole crossbar while she worked.

“Your embassy is experiencing a constitutional crisis,” she told him.

“My ambassador has survived worse.”

“He lost a pinball election.”

“And maintained his dignity throughout.”

The knot came free. Asher unclipped the crooked blue frame, caught Luna's yellow lantern before the gust took it, and nodded toward an awning across the aisle. They ran.

Half the market had arrived under the awning ahead of them. A woman carrying an enormous paper dragon occupied the center; two teenagers were negotiating the division of a single umbrella; a vendor was hurriedly stacking lengths of dyed silk away from the wet edge. The awning was pitched at a dangerous angle, and each fresh downpour filled a sagging pocket overhead.

Asher took one look at it. “We're standing under a very temporary arrangement.”

“So is the Ambassador's government.”

The vendor pointed toward a dry section beside her crates. “If you're planning to keep those, get them away from the edge.”

“Thank you,” Luna said, and accepted a sheet of packing paper to blot the worst of the water.

She opened it on a crate. The yellow lantern had a torn corner and a dark stain where the paper had met the cord. Asher's blue one looked worse. Its paper wings drooped against the frame like a bird reconsidering its career.

He surveyed both objects. “I think we've invented a new style.”

“Disaster chic?”

“River-weather modern.”

“It's a very exclusive school. Most of the students dissolve.”

The vendor snorted and returned to her silks.

Only then did Luna notice how thoroughly soaked they were. Water ran from Asher's hair to the collar of his overshirt. She had a cold trickle down the back of her neck, and her jacket sleeves were plastered to her arms. He was shielding the lanterns with the driest part of his jacket as if the two miserable paper objects were priceless.

“You know they're just paper,” she said.

“I was told my craftsmanship had sentimental value.”

“It does.”

“Then I'm taking my preservation duties seriously.”

She reached up to push his wet hair off his forehead. She hadn't planned to touch him. Her hand simply went there, and he became very still beneath it.

“Your preservation duties,” she said, “could start with keeping yourself dry.”

“That seems less urgent.”

Luna looked at the hand she had left against the side of his face. His skin was warm despite the rain. He was watching her with that unnerving, unhurried attention of his, but the smile had disappeared.

She lowered her hand slowly. Neither made a joke.

A fresh gust shook the awning and sent everyone crowding farther from the street. Asher moved beside Luna to make room for the teenagers and their umbrella. Their shoulders touched. The contact might once have been incidental; now she knew exactly how little it took to close that distance.

Beyond the canvas edge, rain hammered the pavement into a silver blur. The string quartet had fled. A paper price sign sailed past the opening, pursued by an indignant stall owner.

“Our evening's been attacked,” Luna said.

“I noticed.”

“There was supposed to be a pleasant walk after this. Maybe something fried and terrible for us.”

“We can still get the terrible food.”

“In this?”

“I'm willing to make sacrifices.”

“You already sacrificed a perfectly good shirt to an international lantern incident.”

“I'm nothing if not committed.”

His tone was light, but his fingers found hers again, beneath the edge of the packing paper. This time he didn't wait to see whether she would take his hand. He offered it, and she folded hers into it.

Luna was conscious of the offered warmth, the damp fabric at his wrist, the strange comfort of standing beside someone without needing a performance to fill every silence.

“You really don't mind?” she asked.

“The rain?”

“The whole thing. The disaster, the waiting, getting soaked because I wanted to rescue something neither of us could have kept forever.”

He looked at the lanterns. “I mind the cold.”

“Fair.”

“And I probably should have checked the forecast.”

“Devastating admission.”

“But no, Luna. I don't mind being here.”

She believed him. That was the part she hadn't quite prepared for.

Her phone buzzed in her bag. Probably Junia, or an Orbit notification from the endless aftermath of Gravity Thief. Luna left it unanswered. The man in front of her was not competing for her attention with the singer whose music she loved. At least, that was how the world looked from where she stood, with no idea how badly she had misunderstood the arrangement.

The vendor offered them a pair of dry paper sleeves for the lanterns. Asher thanked her, paid for the supplies they had used, and put his phone away without looking at the screen. He settled back beside Luna, their joined hands comfortably visible between them.

“There's a covered tram stop a block away,” he said. “We could run for it when this eases.”

“We could.”

“Or stay until they throw us out.”

Luna studied him. “You're not trying to get rid of me?”

“Luna.” He tilted his head. “I made a crooked birdhouse just so you'd know tonight mattered. I'm not angling for an early exit.”

It was an absurd declaration. It was also the loveliest thing anyone had said to her all week.

She stepped closer, rising enough to press a quick, deliberate kiss to his cheek.

It lasted only a second. His reaction lasted rather longer.

Asher stared at her, looking for the first time that evening as if he had misplaced an entire sentence.

“There,” she said, though her own heartbeat had become inconveniently loud. “Your embassy has received diplomatic recognition.”

His gaze dropped to her mouth and returned to her eyes. “That's going to make the ambassador unbearable.”

“He was already unbearable.”

“I may have to report this to his government.”

“Please don't. They'll demand a summit.”

A smile returned to his face, slower this time. He lifted her hand and brushed his thumb over her knuckles, a gesture too quiet to be a joke and too unmistakable to mistake for one.

The rain showed no interest in stopping. Luna no longer cared. The two rescued lanterns rested beside them, bruised and crooked but intact, while she and Asher stood shoulder to shoulder under the complaining canvas.

They could run for the tram in a minute. Neither chose to move yet.