When Nick had looked up at Garma's Puzzle the day he'd moved in, he'd only seen the glittering orange of its wall cladding, the strange, organic shape of its main column, and the whimsy of the towers that seemed to grow out of it. Living in it for a week, through storms and quiet nights, had given him a new appreciation.

He liked it.

He ran along the forest path toward his new home, catching glimpses of it through the trees.

One of the reasons he'd been so reluctant to move from his old place, over and above the hassle of relocating, was the City Run. It had been a speed track, endurance track, and obstacle course in one, the high level walkways and bridges between the inner city buildings shifting every day to form a new circuit.

The program that kept it changing still hadn't come full circle to start back at the first route again, or so he'd heard. There were so many iterations, it was still working through them.

But exhilarating as the City Run had been, the forest that was part of the Inner Park was just as energizing.

He'd looked across at it from the high walkways of the City Run, but he'd never thought of it as a place to train.

He'd been wrong.

The storm the night he'd moved in had ripped branches from trees and taken one tree down completely. He'd had to pay attention as he plotted his route.

He'd pushed himself, thrilling at the feeling of things growing around him, the drip of water from leaves and the soft thud of his footfalls on the path, so that he was sweating, feeling all his muscles burn, when he rounded the last corner and found himself barreling toward his new neighbor.

She was walking ahead of him, lost in her own world, until she heard him coming and looked over her shoulder. Her mouth formed a delicate O of shock as he bore down on her.

He managed at the last moment to angle past her, slowing as he went, and stopped a few meters ahead of her. He leaned over and blew out a breath.

“You move fast.” Her voice was steady as she joined him. She was wearing her running gear and wisps of her hair had sprung free of their clasp.

She glanced over at him, and then away.

He'd begun to suspect she was avoiding him this last week. The few times he'd caught sight of her, she'd been polite but in a hurry, and they hadn't seen each other over the wall between their balconies again.

Now they were walking side by side, stuck with each other all the way back to their hallway.

He grinned.

“Plenty of damage in the forest this morning.” She glanced at him, frowning a little.

There was something so adorably serious about her as she tried to be polite and make conversation to fill the silence. He felt a surge of protective affection for her.

“Yes. I saw a lot of branches down.”

“I'll let Fost know,” she said, and he nodded, even though he had no idea who Fost was.

They entered the building through the side entrance closest to their tower. The stairs were right next to the lift, and when they reached them, she hesitated.

“My guess is you're going to take the stairs,” she said. She gave a nod of goodbye. “Have a good day.”

The circular lift door pivoted opened, and she stepped inside.

“Wait.”

He didn't know why, but he put his hand over the door to prevent it revolving closed.

“Would you usually have taken the stairs?”

She hesitated. Nodded.

Something eased in him that she didn't try a polite lie.

“Why won't you take them with me?”

Her eyes were dark and intense as she considered him. “Because I feel a . . . tension around you. And I'd prefer not to deal with it for seven floors worth of stairs.” Then she leaned forward, pushed his hand away, and settled back against the far wall of the lift as the door rotated closed, her gaze on him unwavering and watchful.

He knew trying to beat the lift was futile, but he pushed himself so hard he was shuddering by the time he reached their hallway.

He raised his hand to knock on her door, and then decided she was probably in the shower, and it wouldn't hurt if he cleaned up before he spoke to her again, anyway.

He ignored the mess of his apartment, the half-unpacked boxes he'd had no time or inclination to deal with, and was showered and dressed in fifteen minutes.

As he stepped out into the hall, he realized the tight feeling in his chest, the thunder of his heart, was nerves.

He froze.

His job was dealing with danger, and yet knocking on a door was making his hands shake?

He'd never backed down from a challenge, and he wouldn't now. He straightened, gave a light knock.

Tila Dor Ria opened the door barefoot, in a pink pleated shirt and slim gray trousers. She held a cup of jah in her hand.

The scent of freshly baked marsalos enveloped him like a hug from his grandmother's kitchen, and he felt some of the tension slip away.

He also found he had no voice.

She tilted her head, watching him solemnly. He could see she was thinking hard, as if her next move would have major implications for her.

“I was rude to you before. Why are you here?”

“Not rude. Honest.” His voice sounded rusty and he cleared his throat. “I want to know one thing. Why are you afraid of a little tension?”

She leaned against the door frame. “Does it matter?”

“You know it does.”

Something crossed her face, an expression he couldn't interpret, and he braced himself for her to tell him to get lost.

She stepped back from the door, angling her body in an invitation for him to step inside. “I've made marsalos for breakfast. Would you like to join me?”

He went still. Took a breath. It was always a good idea to breathe. “Thank you. Marsalos are my favorite.”

It was actually true, marsalos were his favorite, but he knew he'd have eagerly agreed if she'd told him she was grinding up tree bark.

“How did you make them so fast?” He stepped past her, got a sense of color and light from her decor.

“I put them in to bake while I went for my walk,” she said as she turned away and walked to the open plan kitchen. “How do you like your jah?”

Her hair was still slightly damp from her shower and it hung in a thick blue curtain down her back, loose and free.

Nick flicked the door shut behind him and followed her.

She picked up a cup, eyebrows raised. Waiting for him to tell her how he liked his jah, he realized.

“Nothing added,” he said, and had to clear his throat.

She set the cup under her jah maker and he heard the whirr of the pods being pulverized.

“Fancy machine.” He cleared his throat again. “I thought Halatians didn't like jah.”

She took a deep sip from her cup, eyed him over the top. “I do. But then, I've lived in Parn since I was ten, which is more than half my life, so you could say I'm more Parnian than Halatian now.”

Funny how no one ever seemed to think about it that way. Halatians were Halatians first, in most peoples' minds. “Well, I'm glad you do. I haven't found my jah machine yet.”

He forced his gaze away from her long, slim back as she turned to take the marsalos from the oven and studied the pictures on the walls and the furniture.

Her apartment was minimalist, very soothing. On the left hand wall there was a picture, an actual framed picture rather than a screen frame flicking through images, of Nortri.

It wasn't the usual one of him Nick had seen before, the one that always made the Halatian martyr look brooding and a little sulky. This one was a picture taken with Nortri looking straight into the lens and smiling with a sad, but genuine, smile of affection.

“I've never seen this one,” he said, walking over to look at it more carefully.

“It's unique,” she said, and when he turned, she was holding two plates of marsalos in her hand. “Would you take the jah? I thought we could eat on the balcony.”

He scooped up the cups and followed her again, setting them down on the low table between two deep armchairs on her balcony and snagging the first marsalos before he even sat down.

“You really do like marsalos,” Tila said.

He chewed, taking it slow because it was still close enough to hot for caution. The sweetness of the tamir chunks and the fruity, juicy bursts of the berries were better than he remembered his grandmother's being.

“I think you just ruined all other marsalos for me. For life.” He picked up his cup and sipped his jah.

She smiled, and he realized she wasn't taking him seriously.

“I never joke about marsalos,” he assured her. He swallowed down the rest of it with pure enjoyment.

“The house mother in the home I was sent to after I was rescued from the Caliope was a baker.” Tila's lips quirked. “She considered baking a form of therapy and thought I needed a lot of it. And I wanted to learn how to bake marsalos because . . . well, I wanted to, and she was happy to teach me.”

“Do you miss Halatia?” He'd always assumed Halatians did, but now he wondered if she even remembered her home planet.

She lifted her shoulders. “I have vague memories. I was happy. Safe. My mother was killed when the earthquakes started. My father and I managed to get off planet in one of the medium-sized pleasure cruisers with my aunt and cousin, but he died defending us from the smugglers when they took over the ship.”

“I'm sorry.”

She glanced over at him. “You couldn't have been more than twelve or thirteen at the time.”

“I'm still sorry.” He held her gaze, and she eventually looked away.

He wanted to ask her if she resented the rest of the Verdant String.

Resented the criminal slowness of their response that had allowed the pirates and smugglers a chance to pounce, to hold the survivors for ransom to the other seven planets while the governments bickered about giving in to extortion and about how many Halatians each planet would take.

They'd focused on everything but the most important issue. The lives of the people in the smuggler ships.

“What do you do?” he asked instead.

“I work for the company that manages the City Run. I'm a systems engineer.”

“Do you work in the Hub?”

She nodded.

“I go that way every day, too. It's surprising we haven't shared an EM in that direction yet.”

He was watching her face as he spoke, and he thought he saw a guilty expression cross her face.

“You've been avoiding me?”

She closed her eyes for a moment, opened them with a sigh. “I might wait until I hear you leave before leaving myself. Fortunately for me, you start early.”

He grinned. “You're really not a fan of . . . tension, are you? And you never answered my question before. Why does it bother you?”

She fiddled with her cup, turning it around and around in her hand. “You could say I'm a little skittish as a result of my experiences. I've had my share of relationships.” She looked up, her dark blue gaze like a punch of color. “But when I saw you that first day, outside and then later, in the lift and on the balcony, I was . . .” She looked away, shrugged.

“Overcome?” Nick asked. “Blindsided?”

His words forced a laugh out of her. “Are you usually like this?”

He leaned forward. “I only asked that because that's how I felt, myself.”

She'd curled her feet under her, snuggling deep into the comfortable cushions of the chair, mug held in both hands, and she froze in place at his words.

“Did you?”

“Yes.”

She relaxed back into the chair. “Well, that's good to know.” She sent him a smile that got broader. “Very good.”

“Since you invited me in to breakfast, I'm guessing your own reaction wasn't too different.”

She hid her smile behind her cup. “Maybe.”

He smiled back.

No maybe about it.