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His eyes are white! And his eyes are never white!Killian had said.

Oaken’s eyes were never white.

Except for every time he was around me.

Now, I had the delightful task of figuring out which of the “strong emotions” outlined in the document applied.

I did hit him in the head with my hammer,I reasoned.So maybe it’s pain.

Which reminded me…

Had anyone even cleaned the blood off my poor husband’s head yet?

I wouldn’t have to wait long to find out, because mere seconds later, Oaken came striding in the door to the house. Behind him, the sky was melting into a glorious sunset, vivid colours dripping into each other like Old-Earth candle wax.

He stopped. His eyes went to my face at once.

Bright white.

“Is your head OK?” I blurted as he removed his hat. The dried blood was mostly still there, though some of it had gotten smeared.

“Yes!” he said at once.

“And your foot?”

He seemed confused by the question, and looked down at his boots for a moment.

“Yes, it is alright.”

“OK. Well… Good.”

He raised his eyes – still white, for fuck’s sake – and stared at me.

I cleared my throat, and fought the urge to hide my face. “What is it?”

“It is just… I am glad you are still here.”

“Does that surprise you?” I asked.

He closed the door and made his way into the warm kitchen.

“Yes,” he answered honestly, not a hint of obfuscation in his answer.

Well, surprise was one of the emotions on Tasha’s list…

“Every time I’m away from you for more than a few moments,” Oaken went on, “I worry that you won’t still be there when I come back.”

I laughed to cover up the little twist of unexpected pain his words had caused.

“Well, you’re stuck with me for at least the next two weeks,” I told him. “Warden Tenn said he’d put in the order for the sonic recalibrater when he gets back to his station. It will get delivered there, so I’ll have to wait for him to bring it here before I can even install it.”

“It won’t get delivered here?” Oaken asked. “On the rare occasions when I get goods delivered, they are brought straight to my property.”

“Well, I’m going to assume the typical goods you have delivered aren’t things that could facilitate an off-world escape for a convict or two,” I replied. “Warden Tenn said that even though he trusted you and Garrek, there was still a certain amount of flight risk he had to account for. Basically, he has to supervise the sonic recalibrater from delivery to install to…”

“To when you use it to leave.”

“Yeah.”