The silence between them stretched for three full seconds.
"You're going to—" She stopped. Her throat moved. "You're leaving." Something in the word leaving arrived with an edge she hadn't expected. A tightness. She recognized it with profound irritation because she knew exactly what it was and she was not going to acknowledge it.
She was not.
"For the Trial," he said. "It's a few days."
"I know what it is," she said, even though she didn't, not entirely. "I just—" Her jaw moved. "I thought—" She stopped again.
Cang stepped toward her.
She held her ground, which had become the most reliably available form of dignity. His hand came up—not to her face, not to her jaw—to the front of her silk, fingers finding the curve of her breast through the fabric with the casual familiarity of someone accessing something they own.
The sound she made was quiet and immediate and mortifying.
"—Ahn—"
"You're going to miss it," he said.
Her head came up. "No."
"No?"
