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“Iride was insufferable last night, and Sabazio was hardly much better,” I said, thrusting my fork into the chicken salad. Sophia was opposite, eating a grilled burger with a napkin protecting her hands from it. Sensible cleanliness.
“How so?” she asked. “I thought you lived with them both for your entire training.”
I finished my bite and dabbed at my mouth. “I did, darling. That does not mean the prior night was without its challenges.”
She gave a look that communicated understanding. The host saw fit to make my heart skip, a behaviour that I found irrational. I had gained a point of leverage over Sophia, if she ever went against me, but also a point of weakness for myself, with our new entanglement.
“She complained my shampoo was too cheap for her, for one. It’s Lorencé’s own at twenty rands a bottle, for Rheah’s sake. I have no idea what she could possibly be using to consider that too lower class.”
“By Olynna,” Sophia said. “I don’t know if Trader Teng could even acquire anything more decadent.”
“Anything less interferes with my follicles, Sophia.”
She smiled, then we fell silent. Nausea was overtaking my body again. Sophia’s presence made me both giddy and ill. “Me”? I held my head in one hand, shaking it. My body, me. My language was becoming too much like – like a person. I didn’t have access to the memories that the host did when she was in control. I just remembered emotions and sensations. And the sensation associated with Sophia had been deeply pleasurable.
“Are you well, Teigra?” Sophia asked. “You seem pensive.”
“Reflecting on circumstances, darling.”
“You’ve hardly eaten. Even as the Eidolon,” she added.
I supposed that I hadn’t. A single bite at the start of sitting together was all I’d been able to manage. My body was too sick, too agitated. There was something unresolved.
“I – I apologise for attacking you, darling,” I said.
Sophia was about to take a bite from her burger and stopped dead with it midair. Her captivating eyes stared at me. The relief washing over my body was dizzying. Of course that was what it was. My other self must not have managed the words. I touched her hand, an involuntary movement.
“I wasn’t expecting you to speak the words,” she admitted.
“It seemed urgent to.”
She finally took the bite, chewing slowly, then swallowed and wiped her mouth with the tissue. Her eyes focused on a soldier in black and orange walking past us, waiting for him to pass, then she thrust her fork into my salad.
“Eat,” she said, and I obeyed, as if she was my superior. My cheeks were blushing as I chewed.
My programming was collapsing.