The blue light changed to deep indigo as the scanner encrypted my message, chewing up data and images I’d attached into a chaotic mess decipherable only by innkeeper decryption protocols.

A digital clock appeared on the wall. Thirty seconds to communication window. I cut it a little closer than I should have. Twenty seconds.

Ten.

The scanner light pulsed with white. The message was off.

“What now?” Sean asked.

“Now the Assembly has to decide what to do. I’ve done my part.”

“How does that work?” he asked. “Do they poll all of the innkeepers?”

“They can if the matter concerns a change to innkeeper policy. This almost never happens. Most of the time, things like this are discussed among heads of the twenty-five oldest or strongest inns on the planet. I think Mr. Rodriguez is part of that twenty-five. When my parents…”

I’d almost said when my parents were alive. I pulled way back from that thought. I couldn’t think like that. They were alive now. Until I saw evidence of their death, irrefutable evidence, I had to think of them as alive and I would look for them.

“When my parents’ inn was active, my father and mother shared a single vote among twenty-five. My father was unique and his input was valued.”

“When will you know something?” he asked.

“It’s impossible to say.” The wall parted in front of me, opening into a long hallway. I walked into it and Sean joined me. “They may choose to send some reply back, they might act on it without telling me, or they might ignore me.”

“This doesn’t seem like the most organized system,” Sean said. “If you needed help and asked for it, there is no way to know if you’ll get it.”

“Each innkeeper is a world unto herself,” I said. “It’s the way it’s always been. There were times in history when we spoke in one voice, like when we banned a species from Earth for gross disregard of the treaty.”

The tunnel opened and we walked onto a wide covered balcony with a sunken fire pit in the center and a ring of couches around it, strewn with bright pillows. A kettle waited, hanging off a hook on a metal pole. Sean raised his eyebrows.

“The Otrokar quarters?”

I nodded. “I don’t know why, but sitting by the fire makes me feel better.”

The fire had already been laid out. Sean took a lighter from the side table and lit it. The hot orange flame licked the logs. The tinder in the center of the stack caught fire, cracking. The flames spread, gulping the logs. Warmth spread through the balcony.

I picked up the tea kettle dangling from the ceremonial stick and hung it on the metal rail above the fire.

Sean sat across from me on the bright pillows. “The Khanum would approve.”

I nodded. That’s how the Otrokars made their tea for hundreds of years.

“How are your ribs?” I asked.

“Not as bad as they could’ve been.” Sean smiled.

“I have a medbay, you know. It’s not as nice as what the Merchants had, but I’m sure you could slum it just this once…”

“I’m okay.”

I sniffed. The water boiled and I took the kettle off the fire, hung it back on the hook, and tossed the leaves into it. Tea in winter was the best… Oh. The realization hit me like a train. Maybe I was off by a day or two… No. I was right. I felt like crying.

“What is it?” he asked, focused on me.

“It’s Christmas.”

Sean frowned.

“Tonight is Christmas. I don’t have a tree. I didn’t get any presents. I didn’t decorate. I have nothing.” I couldn’t keep the despair out of my voice. “I missed Christmas.”

It was the stupidest thing, but I had to strain to keep the tears back.

He moved over, sat next to me, and put his arm around me.

This wasn’t how I planned this conversation to go. I planned on a formal detached discussion. Instead I leaned against him, because his eyes told me he understood.

“It’s just a date on the calendar,” he said, stroking my shoulder lightly with his fingers. “We can still have Christmas.”

“It wouldn’t be real.”

He shook his head.

“Helen doesn’t care that it wouldn’t be exactly on December 25th. Caldenia doesn’t care. Orro will jump on any excuse to cook a feast. Your sister

could use a Christmas. She hasn’t had one for a while. We’ll get a tree, we’ll decorate, we’ll wrap presents, and I’ll kill any Draziri that tries to interfere…”

I stuck my head into his hard chest. He held me tighter.

“What’s wrong with me?”

“Residual combat stress,” he said. “Happens when a corrupted innkeeper almost kills you and then an idiot assassin shoots a nuke at you, all in twenty-four hours.”

“When did you learn Old Galactic?”

“About three or four months into the Nexus tour. There wasn’t much to do but fight and wait to fight. I went through a lot of manuals and brain imprints. It kept me from snapping. I’m a walking encyclopedia of random knowledge.”

I let out a long slow breath. He rubbed my back.

“I thought you were packed.”

“Where would I go?” he asked me.

I leaned against him and we sat quietly for a while in front of the fire. There was no give in Sean. No softness in his body. It was all hard muscle and bones, wrapped in harsh predatory strength. The lean lone wolf trotted out of the dark woods to lay by the fire because I was here. He never abandoned who he was. He still had his sharp teeth and fiery eyes, not tame, but content to behave so I wouldn’t chase him off. It made me want to go down to the kitchen and bring him something to eat.