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Mahit found the note in her jacket two weeks after departing the City.
It hadn’t been sealed in an infofiche. She would have noticed it sooner, if it had been; she would have noticed a plastic drive jostling around in her inside pocket. But the note was just a sheet of paper, folded over twice, and discovered by chance. And if Mahit hadn’t felt the texture of it—thick, fibrous, expensive—she might’ve tossed it without looking, might have assumed it was some long-forgotten bit of scrap paper.
Mahit unfolded it—and the glyphs lie there, stark as stars:
In one of my sunrises you will have four.
In four of my ink-scratches you will be gone.
And gone, where space twists you, three suns for my one.
And one: for this one thing I leave before dawn.
It was a good verse. Unusual, certainly. Mahit would’ve expected Three Seagrass to stick to the classical forms. But good.
By force of habit, Mahit shredded the thing. But by force of something deeper than habit, she memorized it first, the little lilt of the lines, the staccato rhythm that weighted so well on the end of each line. Then she threw the pieces away, and tried to remember how to think straight in her own language, the language of home, the language she’d be speaking again very, very soon.
Two months after returning home, Mahit remembered everything—the language, of course, that hadn’t ever really been at risk of leaving her. But also the feel of being on a station, being someplace small and purposeful, so different from the excess and sprawl of the City. She’d missed this, she realized with some relief, as she walked the narrow corridors, and ran her fingers over the practical steely sheen of the walls. She’d missed the view of the stars: four times in a single Teixcalaanli day, Lsel had its night, and she counted the constellations out the Station’s long low windows. It was right, she thought, to return here. To ground herself away Teixcalaan. Maybe Yskandr should have returned home more often—
<Maybe,> the older Yskandr hummed in her mind, indulgent.
And yet.
She found herself avoiding old créchemates. She found herself spending more time inside her quarters than out. Found herself stammering half-answers when friends asked her what was it like?, and kept changing the subject to something, anything else. How could she explain what had happened to her? How to explain the Jewel of the World, to someone who had never been? how to explain an exploding star? enormous, overpowering, a greatness that had nearly overpowered her?
So she avoided others, and told herself that the two Yskandrs in her skull were plenty to keep her occupied. Even if there had only been one of them, she was still in what Heritage deemed the “early” stages of integration—still at risk for complications, still needing to exercise restraint. And with two of them, well. She avoided migraines most days, and called that a success—
A fierce rapping struck Mahit’s door, jarring her out of some midafternoon fugue. She opened the door to find a sharply-dressed messenger. Teixcalaan, he announced, was en route to treat with the aliens at the edge of this sector. They were sending a full diplomatic delegation; they were pausing at Lsel tomorrow to refuel and rest; and Mahit, you are needed now.
Mahit was still ambassador—technically. So this was her job. She hadn’t read or spoken Teixcalaanli for as long as she could ever remember (a week, just a week, though it felt longer than that), but she was still an ambassador.
“Okay,” she told him. “Lead the way.”
<It’s about time,> the younger Yskandr whispered inside her. All ambition; all pluck.
Which is how she found herself at a gala the next day, warmly welcoming a retinue of pilots, ambassadors, linguists—and Three Seagrass.
Mahit startled to see her face in the long lines of dignitaries, but tried not to show it. It made sense, she told herself, as she shook the hand of the delegation’s captain, and its two lead pilots. Second Undersecretary to the Information Minister was a fair bit higher post than liaison to some untried Lsel ambassador, and Teixcalaan hardly had a greater diplomatic concern at the moment than negotiations with the aliens in this corner of space. Of course Three Seagrass might be here; it couldn’t be anything personal.
<A happy coincidence?> older Yskandr teased.
Mahit ignored him. Three Seagrass was next in line, and she needed to focus. She reached out a hand, momentarily tongue-tied, trying to remember if just undersecretary was sufficient, or if Three Seagrass had some new honorifics to go along with her new title—
“Wonderful to see you again, Mahit Dzmare,” Three Seagrass said smoothly.
“And you too,” Mahit managed.
She wanted to say more, say anything, but Three Seagrass moved briskly down the line, and left her to smile at Twenty Clemency, first officer of the delegation’s flagship.
Mahit couldn’t dwell on it. Moments after the last introduction was made, she was pulled away to help translate for some Stationer or another, and then consulted on a point of etiquette for an anxious representative of Miners, and then she just managed to snatch a few bites of fish cakes from some passing caterer’s tray, before she was drawn into a long discussion on Nineteen Adze’s latest civil service reforms...
The only lull came much later in the night, when the less vigorous members of the delegation had started to turn in. Three Seagrass spotted Mahit, from across the room. Their eyes met—and this was Mahit’s opportunity to shake her head, wave her away, turn and talk to someone else—
She didn’t.
And so Three Seagrass strode over, drink in hand, smiling like a fox: “How have you been, Mahit?”
Mahit shrugged. “As well as can be expected. Though I suppose I’ve had the benefit of a break. It sounds like they put you to work right away after my departure, Undersecretary.”
“I wouldn’t want it any other way,” Seagrass said, clearly pleased, taking a sip from her glass. Then she tapped the glass with her index finger: “This drink,” she pronounced, “we must bring it back to the City. It’s excellent. I’ve never had the like before.”
Mahit stifled a laugh.
“What?”
“No, no, it’s just.” It was kitraak, the sort of thing teenagers drank—coarse and bright and most of all, cheap. Artificial sweeteners were far more convenient than the real thing, out here on the far edge of space. Apparently Three Seagrass’s palate was less discerning than Mahit had assumed: “It’s just not what I would have expected.”
Three Seagrass shrugged, sidling closer. “So when do I get to meet 2e Asteroid?”
It took Mahit a moment to remember: “Oh, him.” The awful classmate from her schoolgirl days, who’d chosen the irrational number for his Teixcalaanli name. She’d forgotten that she told Three Seagrass about him.
He was here, of course. No matter how badly he’d blundered his aptitude tests, he wasn’t going to pass up a chance to play at being a properly cultivated Stationer. She spotted him at once—in a station small as this one, you couldn’t avoid your awkward childhood acquaintances even if you tried—but then she looked away, grinning at Three Seagrass: “See if you can spot him yourself.”
It was a little challenge, and Seagrass’s eyes flashed with delight. Her eyes flitted through the crowd—sorting, pruning—and settled at last on a tall man in line for drinks. He was dressed in a garish green-and-gold robe, not at all standard Stationer garb, but not Empire garb either, and not even playing at Empire garb like half the guests here. His hair was spiked askew at five different angles, and the overall effect was that of some bright-feathered gryphon, skulking awkwardly through the crowd. Seagrass tilted her head, in lieu of pointing: “Him?”
Mahit shook her head. “Remember. He’s only half as clever as the name.”
Three Seagrass snickered, and tried again. Her eyes settled on a bookish-looking wallflower on the far side of the room—
But then Mr. Irrational Number strode up himself: “Undersecretary Three Seagrass, correct?" he asked, with a little bow. (How, Mahit wondered, how he managed to show up overdressed to a gala? The cravat and the tailcoat looked so grandparent-y.) "I’m glad to meet you on this auspicious evening," he continued. "I am Narek Koban, an old classmate of Mahit’s. Have you been enjoying your stay at Lsel Station?”
Perfect grammar, of course. But the accent was so thick that Mahit could see the effort it took Three Seagrass not to wince (a well-timed sip of her drink made her narrowing of her eyes look almost natural), and the word choice was gratingly schoolboyish. (Auspicious, really?)
But Three Seagrass was all asekreta; there wasn’t a stumble she couldn’t finesse. She smiled, a smile strong enough to smooth over the rough edges of his words: “Well met, Narek Koban.” She tipped her glass towards his with a little clink. “I’ve been enjoying your Station very much. Mahit here has been a most accommodating guide.”
The adjective Seagrass used for accommodating was archaic, impressively so—and subtly possessive, if you had any familiarity with the connotations, or the way it was used in Pseudo-Thirteen River’s work. Mahit flushed. Narek, of course, missed the reference completely, nodding along so hard Mahit thought he looked like one of those bobble-headed toys. “I don’t know how long you’ll be here, but if you’d like an additional guide, or—or anything at all, I’d be delighted to help. There aren’t many opportunities to use my Texicalaanli out here, you know. But I’ve studied the language for many years now. In fact, I was aiming to become an ambassador myself—”
For a moment, Mahit felt bad for him. He only wanted, after all, the same thing she had—the same thing she’d had and given up—
“—but, unfortunately, unlike how the Imperial exams work, there’s some degree of partiality in how Stationer posts are chosen—”
—and then she didn’t feel bad for him at all.
Mahit bit her tongue on a retort. Three Seagrass, however, kept her face impassive: “I hope someday you are able to travel to the Jewel of the World. Mahit and I were just talking over the Old City’s tiling.”
The idiom meant something like, “we’re discussing a private matter,” a subtle hint for the third party to leave the conversation. Narek’s narrowed: he wanted to stay. But if he deliberately chose to misunderstand the idiom, he’d reveal himself as a barbarian. So:
“Another time, then, good undersecretary,” he said, with a forced little bow, and walked away.
“Two-E?” Three Seagrass breathed, as soon as he was out of earshot.
“Of course.”
She snickered, and finished the last of her drink.
Then Mahit pointed across the room, at a different Stationer—a tall woman with severe cheekbones and pulled-back hair. “How about her?”
“What about her?”
“Pick her Teixcalaanli name.”
Three Seagrass smiled hugely, almost Lsel-wide: a game. She brought a hand to her chin, her eyes just as intent as when she was performing some particularly intricate bit of decryption—Mahit wondered abruptly if she played cards. It had been a brief obsession of Mahit’s, as a child, challenging her friends to games of Hvasr and Lanterloo until they were all sick of losing. She’d like to play against Three Seagrass, she thought, would like to teach her some of the Station’s trick-taking games—
<You’d like more than that, surely,> Yskandr chimed in.
Before Mahit could mentally hiss at Yskandr to shut up, Three Seagrass had her answer: “Thirty-Six Metronome.”
And, damn, that was fitting. Three Seagrass couldn’t have known it, but the woman was one of the best voropate-drummers on the whole Station—metronome, indeed.
Then Three Seagrass gestured at a broad-shouldered man who looked like he’d come straight out of a Pilots recruitment catalog, dressed in the classic blue fatigues: “What about him, Mahit? And it’s cheating to just use the name they picked for themself in your language classes.”
“No problem. He never bothered with Teixcalaanli classes.” Mahit considered, watching him as he shouted at another man across the room, raising his glass for some exuberant toast: “Ten Starfire.”
Three Seagrass snorted. “For a pilot? Rather on the nose, isn’t it?”
“Sounds like you haven’t met our pilots.”
Three Seagrass laughed, you got me.
Mahit laughed too. Her time in the City may have been a frantic blur, but it hadn’t all been explosions and gunshots and bloody sacrifices, she was remembering now. There had been moments like these, the moments in-between.
Then—silence rushed in, like vacuum after a hull breach. It was Mahit's turn to pick a candidate for their little game, but something in her balked. She couldn’t have drunk that much already, could she? The right move was to keep the game going. Ask Three Seagrass what name she’d pick for that lanky man in the far corner, taller than the tallest Teixcalaanli she knew. Three Seagrass would christen him Four Redwood, and they’d keep christening back-and-forth until their game turned into banter. And maybe before the night was over, Mahit would slip a note in Three Seagrass’s pocket, and they’d keep dancing around this careful distance between them—
Three Seagrass cleared her throat. She was swirling the last bit of her drink awkwardly in the bottom of her glass.
Then: <Mahit,> Yskandr whispered, like someone stirred to annoyance after staying silent for too long. <You’re killing the mood.>
On impulse, Mahit moved her hand to Three Seagrass’s wrist.
The touch was light. A question. Three Seagrass said nothing, only raised an eyebrow, but her eyes were fixed firmly on Mahit.
So Mahit tightened her grip, and led Seagrass away from the party, down a hallway, then down another, until Mahit couldn’t hear the crowd anymore. (Mahit didn’t turn to see if Seagrass protested, though she could feel her eyes on her.) She led them to the first private place she could think of—not her own quarters, they were too far away; she may lose her nerve altogether in the two vacuum locks between here and there. But surely, she thought, no one in the Office of Extraplanetary Affairs would miss out on tonight’s banquet—
They half-stumbled into the OEA office, which was empty, just as she'd hoped, and dark, though a motion-sensing light hiccuped awake just as Mahit closed the door behind them. Mahit scanned the room, watching for movement, some straggler of a bureaucrat—but no, they were alone. And, though she’d chosen this place due to convenience more than anything, it was pretty, she decided, in a very Lsel way—low-ceilinged, long tables, a silvery-steel sheen to everything. Cleanliness. Closeness.
Three Seagrass was very close to her, now.
Mahit kissed first, and for a moment it was—odd. Three Seagrass pulled back, like a dodge, before pressing in close again. But then, even as they kissed, Three Seagrass was stiff, almost—shy? (Such a ill-suited word for the asekreta that Mahit almost laughed at the thought.)
It wasn’t that she’d misread this, Mahit thought with sudden indignation. There had been that note; she couldn’t have been wrong about that. Which meant that Three Seagrass must be—playing, Mahit realized, feigning restraint, when Mahit knew she must want this as much as her—
Oh, she’d be so dangerous at a card table.
“Come on,” Mahit hissed, and Seagrass laughed, breaking her faux-stoicism at last, returning the kiss with such vigor that Mahit found herself staggering backward, one step, two. She found Three Seagrass's arms wrapped around her shoulders, and then found herself pressed against a wall.
Mahit fumbled with one hand, reached out for the door, and latched the lock shut. Three Seagrass laughed. “You are my favorite barbarian.”
Mahit knew she meant it fondly, but—it’d been months since she’d heard that word, it had been a long day, she didn’t want it. “It’s Mahit,” she said. “Please. Just call me Mahit.”
Three Seagrass tilted her head, as though seeing her in a new light. Then she leaned forward, to whisper into her ear, “Mahit,” in a way that made her shiver. Then again, while breathing against her neck, “Mahit.”
It was nice, hearing her name in that voice, with that tone—rich, indulgent, fond. A little overwrought, really, but nice. And since things were already overwrought, Mahit thought, they may as well keep on with it, and Mahit began to murmur the verse that Three Seagrass had written her:
In one of my sunrises you will have four.
In four of my ink-scratches you will be...
—and she felt Three Seagrass stiffen. “So you found that.”
Mahit only barely stifled a laugh, as Three Seagrass lifted a hand to her hair, tugging at some stray strand—it was so gratifying to see her flustered. “It was a good poem,” Mahit insisted, running a hand down Three Seagrass’s neck, down her side. Teasing and reassuring at once.
“I didn’t have as much time to spend on it as I would’ve liked.”
Mahit nodded, moving her hand to Seagrass’s, and interleaving their fingers. “There’s still not as much time as I’d like.” The party had started late, and fourth sunrise wasn’t far off. “Say we make the most of it.”
For a moment Three Seagrass wouldn't meet her eyes. And for that moment, Mahit wondered if she'd ruined it, called too much attention to it, made Three Seagrass think too much about what they were doing. She shouldn't have spoken the poem, Mahit thought. This wasn't some holoseries, they weren't long-parted lovers in some ancient poem, and maybe this was even some breach of undersecretarial protocol, who knew—
But then Three Seagrass said, "Let's," and if Mahit had any further questions, Three Seagrass's returning kiss was answer enough.