"Ohmygodohmygodohmygod," Leitl repeated, in a breathless and grinning litany. Her neck was stiff but her lips stretched ear-to-ear, and quick as a snake she snatched another glance over her right shoulder. "He's still there! Eeeee! Eeee!"

Loren was just as stiff-necked as she was, but he wasn't smiling or sneaking peeks. His mind was awhirl with memories and paralyzing what-ifs. "He's still there?"

She was so worked up he could feel her shoulder shaking next to his. They were perched close together on the stone-and-mortar wall that closed off a popular inn for academy students. They had been facing the courtyard instead of the street, so they hadn't noticed him until Leitl's quicksilver attention dashed behind her and fell on his horse's shining armour. She'd practically turned around, but at her first 'Hey--is that who I think it is?!' Loren had made a point of keeping his face in front of him.

"He isssss. He's with some damn fine guys, too."

"What do they look like?"

She darted another glance behind her, playing 'the covert spy with fiery red hair', and sized them up. "Tall, black hair, pale eyes I can see from here. He's on a palomino...he doesn't look mixed with anything. Just dark-haired. The other one is sandy-blond and he's got aristocratic features, like the Duke's. He's skinny." The Duke, the headmaster of the Royal Academy. As the brother of the King the blood he shared was the bluest of the land, and his hawklike features seemed to look down on everyone they saw.

Black hair, gold horse. Had to be Lan. There weren't very many black-hairs in the Rankhara, and the few there were couldn't easily be mistaken for each other. Lan's mare was gold as coins, like her dam. The blond? Probably Ness. They take him everywhere. He's a healer.

The fighter, the healer, and Kahlili. Kahlili the beautiful, Kahlili the quick. Kahlili the brilliant. Lili.

"What does he look like?" he whispered, nudging her shoulder-to-shoulder. She was peeking again.

"Who, Lili?" She really had no right to call him that, but it was the only thing she'd everheard Loren call him, so she must feel like she knew him. He certainly wouldn't appreciate being addressed by her with such obvious intimacy, but hopefully the situation wouldn't present itself. "He looks...really thin, like the court dancers. His hair is long and twisted into ropes, and he has silk strips and colored yarn and bells and all braided into it. When you described it he sounded unkempt but it's actually kinda cute."

"Does he look strong?" Loren whispered. When he had left, Lili had just started filling out; prompted by good food and strenuous Rankhara practices. He'd always be lean, but a year with the Rankhara would definitely have changed him.

"Strong? Uhhnnn...he's wearing armor. He looks pretty hot, though, yeah. Eeeee, I can't believe this is happening! Oh my GOD!" Her shoulder began to shake again and she kicked the wall with her booted heels, where the street couldn't see.

I should get down. This is tempting the tiger. What if they recognize me? He'd cut and dyed his hair, gained a little softness about his face from living the sheltered life of a student, and was now dressed in an academia uniform the likes of which they had never seen him in before. But a face was a face, and Lili had once known his body better than he knew it himself. Common sense bade him get off the wall and run back to his room at the school and hide there until today became next week. But he couldn't.

Behind him, a hundred yards away, within clear line of sight, was a part of his life he had vowed never to return to. A part of him that he'd cut away and buried. It thrilled the hell out of him that he could turn his head and see a face he hadn't seen in over a year, a face he would have died for, once. The face of a brother. The face of a comrade. The face of a lover. Lili the perfect. He could not make his body move.

"What if they come over here?! Hey, why are they even here? Do you think they're doing official Rankhara-type business?" Leitl whispered, setting her chin on his shoulder but keeping her eyes trained backward.

Why were they here? "What are they doing?"

"Ummm, they're all mounted and they're in the middle of the street. They're talking."

The cold air probably puffed their breath and whipped color in their cheeks. He was dying to turn around and look at them, but he didn't dare.

"Yeah, they're probably here on business. I don't think they're like, looking for me, if that's what you mean. No one knows I'm here. It's just a coincidence." An amazing, terrifying coincidence. He was half a world away from where he'd been, he'd hidden himself that far away. But here they were. Here they were, grabbing his friend Leitl's eyes with their armor and prompting her 'Ohmygod, Rankhara!' and freezing his blood in his veins. They were here.

The thought seemed so alien, after he'd mulled over and spurned and cherished their sour memories so much they seemed like little more than a dream. The two years of his life in the Rankhara all seemed like one big fuzzy dream, something that never really happened. He had dreamed the day he joined. He had dreamed meeting Lili, the first time he saw him performing at that seedy drunken bar, all cream skin and scraps of cloth and dancer's limbs. He dreamed saving him, and taking him back to Ellinae, the Rankhara base; dreamed their first night together. Dreamed the iron-lace fury in Lili's eyes the day he'd run away. It was all...a dream.

"Loren? Are...you still breathing?"

When she said it, it became obvious he wasn't. He unclenched his lungs, stared at the snow on the ground, and banished the dreams back to night. I am Loren. I am a student at the Royal Beruseda Academy. I am not dreaming. I have woken up.

"Honestly, Leitl, I- I don't care. It's in the past." Leitl looked at him and blinked. His most-fun stories were about the Rankhara, and he doled them out like they were gold from his mouth. He missed being one, she could tell; even though she hadn't known what they were before she'd met him. Now he didn't care?

"In the past?" she whispered. "Are you doing some huge-freak denial thing?! I tho—HOMYGOD!" Suddenly she snapped back around, away to the street, stiff as a steel pole. Her eyes were huge and her lips were a line in her face.

"What?!" Loren demanded. "What happened?!"

She stayed like that for a moment, like a rabbit stills to avoid the wolf. Finally she flicked her eyes to him, face still straight ahead. "He saw me looking."

"WHAT?!" Loren gasped.

"He saw me look at him. Ohmygod. Ohmygiddygod. Ohmygod."

Loren grabbed her hand and squeezed it so tight he heard it crack. She had a monstrous smile on her face suddenly.

"Leitl! Look again! See what he's doing!" It was an order dearly given, because it cost him the last of the air in lungs he couldn't force to breathe again.

Leitl's eyes flew around the yard before she squeezed them shut and steeled herself. The huge grin was such a dead giveaway, but he couldn't get her to wipe it off her face before she glanced back again, viper-quick.

"EEEEEEEEE OHMYGOD HE WAS STILL LOOKING HE SAW ME AGAIN!!!"

Loren felt panicky, hot and cold at the same time. "Idiot!" he hissed. She turned around again and looked, nice and long this time, because she was so well and obviously caught.

Her voice was high as a dog whistle and strangled with excitement. "THEY'RE ALL LOOKING. HE'S COMING OVER. OH MY FUCKING GOD."

Loren dropped off the wall. He was amazed that his body could still catch him. The wall was about eight feet high (it took at least two people to get up to sit on it), high enough to provide nice privacy to the inn's back courtyard. He was virtually invisible to the street now. "Leitl," Loren said, in his sternest voice. "Don't tell them anything about me. LIE."

"HIIIIIIII!" Leitl said, to someone coming up in front of the wall. She was always so sunny. She was high energy, bouncy, good for a friend and good for the New Loren who would be stormy if left alone. But sometimes she did bad.

Loren sprinted back to the safety of the inn, circling around the back and coming up in front, at the stables. The school loaned them courier nags to ride back-and-forth into the City, at whose heart the school lay. He snapped his fingers hurriedly at the stable boy, a scrawny kid who fumbled in response to Loren's obvious urgency. He managed to saddle and bridle a compact paint with one walleye, who had been ridden in by someone outside Loren's circle of friends. It didn't matter. Horses moved faster than humans, and he just needed one. Not that he didn't trust Leitl, but she knew too much and most of which couldn't be explained. If she let any of it slip, instead of the 'you're hot and I was just looking' routine that was her safest bet, Loren was made. She couldn't lie her way out of how she knew to call him Lili, and besides that, Lili was no fool. Even if he'd come over just to court a pretty girl, his hackles would fly up the moment he smelled something wrong. Actually, considering her 'young friend's abrupt and curious departure, they probably already were. Well, what was I supposed to do? Play stupid? Excuse myself after being introduced? The idea was so ludicrous he could feel hot laughter bubbling up inside of him. It would probably sound rather odd if he let it escape. Maybe kind of crazy.

Lili is talking to my friend Leitl. He's here. He's at the Royal City. Kahlili, Liokness, and Lan are across a wall from me. I could...I could see them. If I circled around the inn long-wall, peaked around from a shop corner or something, I could see them...that would be so...so...

Time to go. It was time to go. I am Loren, of Beruseda. I have woken up. He spurred the paint toward 'home'.