If Eve had an Old Earth, antique standing clock like she’d had on Everton, she’d be looking at it every other moment right about then, pacing in front of it.

They had a time-keeping clock, of course, but Dumera had a different way of slicing time. Instead of numbers, Dumerians used colors. Shades of red in the morning and shades of blue in the evening, each a distinct color. And instead of an hour, only about forty-five minutes passed between each shade. Khiva had to be at the depot before the cherry-red shade and Eve had to be at the archives any time before the salmon pink. And what constituted noon was a pure grey and midnight was silver.

It had taken time to get used to. But right then, their clock showed it was Old Earth sky blue and Khiva was not home.

He should’ve been home hours ago.

Eve sighed again for the millionth time, nibbling on her bottom lip. She’d already had dinner and bathed. She’d sat on their landing outside for a little while and even re-organized their small kitchen, arranging spices she’d purchased that day at the markets.

Worry was making her anxious and jittery. It was so unlike Khiva to be late, and so unlike him not to patch through to her to let her know he’d be late. She’d already called the depot, so she knew that the transport vessel had already dropped off hours earlier.

So where was he?

To distract herself, she sat down on their sitting area, her feet sinking into the plush carpet they’d bought to line the hard floors of the dwelling.

She pulled the book she’d made for Khiva into her lap, a gift that she’d finally finished working on. At the archives, she’d been thrilled to come across a rare Keriv’i text. While Dumera collected as many books and scrolls and tablets and written accounts as possible of any race and species, Eve had never come across anything written in Khiva’s language. It was only after she’d brought it to the head archivist’s attention and ran the text through several Info-Decs that she’d realized what she’d discovered.

The pages of the text had been brittle and worn, but Eve had managed to make duplicates of the pages and bound them all in a hard cover book using cloth and a piece of square metal she’d found at the market. A book, written in her male’s language.

She trailed her fingers over the cover, feeling the texture glide underneath her prints. She opened it, staring at the strange symbols that made up letters and words. She wondered if Khiva would teach her how to read his language, just as he’d been slowly teaching her how to speak it.

Eve’s breath hitched when she heard the familiar clinking of the ladder that led up to their dwelling and she hid the book before rushing out the front door, to peer over the railing at the landing.

Relief made her limbs loose when she saw Khiva, halfway up.

“Where have you been? I’ve been so worried!” she exclaimed, looking him over when he finally cleared the landing.

Khiva immediately pulled her into his arms, touching his forehead to hers. “I am sorry, leeldra. I tried patching through but it was not connecting.”

“Are you okay?” Eve asked, her heart beating in her throat. “Is anything wrong?”

He seemed…drained. Even his eyes seemed less bright when he pulled back to look at her.

“Come bathe with me,” he requested. “I will tell you everything.”

Eve followed him into their dwelling, winding through their sitting room, their kitchen until they reached the washroom. As Khiva shed his dusty layered clothes from his work that day, Eve filled the large washtub, the pipes clunking outside.

He sighed, rolling his neck.

“Khiva, you’re worrying me,” she said softly as she watched him.

When his eyes met hers, they softened and even the lines between his brows smoothed. He approached her, nude, and slipped his fingers underneath the straps of her cloth dress and pushed it off her shoulders. It slid down, pooling at her feet until she was as naked as he was.

Khiva scooped her up, though his muscles must be sore from his day, and gently settled them both in their washing tub. He situated her on top of him, so that she faced him and straddled his thighs.

Given the intimate position, at any other time, Eve knew her male would’ve taken advantage, but his mind seemed to be on other matters entirely.

Khiva blew out a long breath, his eyes closing as the hot water relaxed him. She worried sometimes that he worked himself too hard.

Eve grabbed a clean washing cloth from the neat stack on the side of the washing tub and lathered it with the soap she’d made from the jivera tree flowers and a clean-smelling herb she’d found in the markets.

Tenderly, she ran the cloth over the front of his chest, wiping away sweat and dust and flecks of mining metal that had somehow made it past the layers of his clothing.

Eve waited for him to speak as she moved on to his left arm, swiping from the bulk of his shoulders all the way down to the tips of his fingers that rested against her upper thighs.

When she started on his right arm, he told her, “I met a male today on the transportation vessel.”

“Okay,” she said slowly.

“A male I knew on Kerivu.”

Eve’s breath hitched, her hand stilling. “Really?”

Khiva nodded, his eyes falling closed, his head falling back to rest on the rounded lip of the washing tub.

“His name is Kavik,” Khiva continued. “He…he was my brother’s closest friend.”

Eve absorbed his words. Khiva so rarely spoke of his family, of his mother and brother, whose names she didn’t even know. And he absolutely refused to speak about what happened on Kerivu the day the planet was destroyed, not wanting to relive those terrible memories.

Eve understood why, but a part of her wished he’d confide in her, that he didn’t bottle up his feelings about what had happened, about his grief over not knowing whether his family lived or died in the aftermath of Kerivu.

“We spoke briefly on the transport vessel, but then I asked him to meet me at the depot once we were finished in the mines. That was where I was. We never even left the depot.”

“And what did you talk about?” Eve asked.

“Everything. And perhaps nothing at all,” Khiva said, his eyelids drifting open to regard her. His hand lifted from the water and he brushed his wet fingers over her lips. “We spoke of Kerivu, of my family, of his family. His father is also missing. We spoke of where we had gone after the planet was destroyed.”

“You told him about Madame Allegria?”

He nodded. Eve knew that would’ve been difficult for him to do. He’d often thought of himself as a whore and they’d almost broken apart over his inability to see past what he perceived was his shame and his pride, both intertwined together.

“I told him about Madame Allegria and Everton. About the rest of the Krave. And about you.”

Eve ran the cloth down his abdomen. “And where had he been all this time?”

“On Jetu,” he said, with some hesitation. Eve’s eyes flashed up to his.

“Jetu,” she repeated slowly. “But that’s…”

“They kept him there, forcing him to work on my ancestor’s process for making firestones. Only he did not know how.”

“But you do,” Eve murmured, smoothing the cloth over his hips.

“Pax,” he murmured, his eyes meeting hers. “I do.”

He’d told her once that his race had called him the Prince of Firestones, a direct descendant of the male that had pulled the Quadrants out of a time called the Dark Age.

“Have you ever thought about it?” Eve couldn’t help but ask. “About making them again? Here?”

He made a sound in the back of his throat. “Veki.”

Eve realized he was lying to her. Possibly for the first time, willingly. She went quiet, focusing her attention on cleaning the grime of his day away, though she was slightly hurt. Hurt that he still kept that part of his life, who he had been, his past, his family, from her.

It had slowly started to eat at her, his adamant silence about his life on Kerivu. She remembered the time, when she’d been coming to see him every week at Madame Allegria’s, when she’d asked him what had happened the day Kerivu was destroyed, how he had become separated from his mother and brother.

And his response? He told her he would not speak of that day.

And that was that.

Up until now, he’d remained tight-lipped, but it hurt Eve to know that he carried that day with him, always. How could he never be reminded of it?

Eve wanted him to confide in her, to share those things. And perhaps it was the human in her, but she wanted to comfort him, to be someone that he didn’t hesitate in sharing with.

Perhaps it was her own cowardice for not confronting him about it.

At that very moment, it was on the tip of her tongue to ask more about creating firestones, but it was a sensitive topic for him and he looked so exhausted. She didn’t want to tire him even more.

So she was surprised—and hopeful—when he said, “I asked him if he knew where my mother and brother were. Whether they’d escaped Kerivu.”

Eve set the cloth aside, her movements slow and deliberate. “What did he say?”

“That he had not heard of their whereabouts. On Jetu, he was not allowed communication, but he says once he managed to escape, he met a male on his travels to Dumera. This male recognized him as a Keriv’i and told him that another Keriv’i lived on his home colony. A male we both know, who might have information.”

Eve’s heart skipped, recognizing the hope in his voice. “Really?”

“Kavik gave me the patch number, but the connection is dark right now. We will keep trying,” he murmured, his fingers coming to clasp around her wrists. Softly, he said, “This is the most promising lead I have had in over twelve years.”

Eve smiled and pushed her forehead into the crook of his neck, their skin pressing together. She felt one of his hearts beating against her breast.

“Do you think he will know where they are?” she asked.

“I can only hope,” he said in reply. He hesitated slightly before saying, “Dhrika was a close friend to my mother and her line. Often, I wondered if they were lovers.”

Eve’s breath hitched, half-surprised that he was telling her these things. “Really? Did your father know?”

Again, he hesitated and Eve wished that there would be a time in their future when he wouldn’t second-guess these things, where he could be more open with his past life. “It was likely.”

He said nothing more about it and Eve barely hid her sigh.

“Dhrika would know where they are, if they still live. I have to believe that,” he murmured, almost to himself.

What went unspoken was that if this Dhrika didn’t know…Eve didn’t know how much more hope and optimism Khiva had left in him.

He’d told her that every year on Everton, he’d used the meager amount of credits Madame Allegria gave them to renew his application to search for them. And, though he didn’t speak about what he’d done before Everton, Eve had to believe that he’d tirelessly searched for his lost family then too.

But twelve years had passed since he’d last seen them. Without a word or indication of what had happened to them.

Eve worried that if Dhrika didn’t know something, anything…then Khiva might lose his faith that they would ever be found.

And she would be able to do nothing about it. She would only be able to support him, to watch him go through that emotional pain and loss, just as she had done with her own father.

So while she was happy there was a possibility he was a step closer to finding his mother and brother, she also worried about what would be revealed when he made contact with Dhrika, if he ever did.

Because if Dhrika did have news, she couldn’t help but wonder if it was good.

It will be worth it, she thought quietly. Any chance at all was better than no chance.

At the very least, Khiva would finally find closure.

Eve sighed into his skin, sensing that he was done speaking. And she did the only thing she could do: wrap her arms around him and pray to all the gods in the universe that everything would turn out okay.