Page 9 of I Dated the Lost Song

“You can do that.”

“Oh. Right.” Arcady looked crushed. “You were just busy today.”

“Yeah.”

Kritz kept his arm around Arcady. “Cadence, what is your favourite meal here?”

Cadence pinched the bridge of her nose. “I don’t know. I just need to get back to my room. I am enjoying the break so far. I haven’t had one before.”

Arcady looked like she was going to cry. “Arcady, don’t you fucking think about. I can and will take you over my knee, and it will feel like you are making out with an electric fence. If you want to see me at dinner, tell me.”

Kritz paused. “You didn’t ask her to dinner?”

Arcady winced. “They told me she arrived at six, so I thought we had time.”

“Also, Arcady, I sit at a table for one. It is a mechanical action. I come in, I sit down, I eat, and then I go back to my apartment. That’s it. Nothing else.”

Arcady asked softly, “Did you want to go shopping on the weekend? Cori is really good at shopping.”

“I am not getting between you and any of your lovers.”

Arcady blinked. “What?”

“Never mind. Have a nice dinner. Good evening to you all.” She smiled at all three of them and nodded to Arcady.

She got into the elevator and returned to her apartment. It was quiet. Mortimer was at her side the moment she walked in.

“I don’t think that Arcady has ever appreciated the silence of an empty room. She has always had people around her, and they are drawn to her. That isn’t my case, and now that my skin hums, it is less likely that I will find a compatible partner. Tomorrow, we find out if the cell was able to break out of prison and attach, and if it did, it would explain the pain I felt yesterday morning.”

Mortimer rubbed against her legs, and she went to her music room and got to work. She needed to get more music out of her. It was becoming imperative.

* * * *

Kritz looked at Arcady. “What do you know about how your sister lived her life before last week?”

Arcady blushed. “I don’t know a lot. She said she went into foster care here in Aksalla when she was twelve.”

“How did she get here? You were from the capitol.”

Arcady blinked. “Oh. I didn’t think about that. I was with Thomas.” She paused. “She said that when she left home, Thomas didn’t want her. That means she came to us, and I didn’t know. That bastard!”

“And what would she do next?”

“I guess she would head off to Aksalla somehow.”

“Do you know what happens to anyone found crossing the Aksallan border? They are arrested, put in cells, and then they are assessed while their identity is sought.”

Arcady blinked. “Cadence wouldn’t mind much. She was always on her own.”

“Bunny, do you know what kind of cells those are? She’s tall for a female, and until her age was confirmed, she would have been in the female general population.”

“Oh.”

“So, if she doesn’t like contact now, there may be a reason.”

Klauz walked up and nodded at Kritz. “She comes in, asks for a menu, and seems to be able to choose which days I am late to work and leave just before I arrive. In the evening, she appears after I am usually attending other tables and asks for a menu and gets a single entrée and then leaves.”

Kritz said, “Do you think she is getting enough?”

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