Chapter 38: Before the Claim

The pin went in on the fourth try and came out on the fifth. Callum sat behind Sau-lin on the edge of the bed with her hair in both fists and no idea how it had ever stayed up. She had taken the jade off the low table and passed it back over her shoulder without a word. He had decided that was permission. Now she reached back again and laid her palm flat over his heart, as if to hold him at a distance. Her pulse ran against his ribs through the heel of her hand, slower than it had been in the night and separate from his. He found he was counting. "You are measuring me," she said. "I'm sitting here." "You can do two things badly at once." Her bare feet were on the floor. Where they met the boards the grain showed through them faintly, though…