what I can teach you. But you’ll have to wait until later. I need beauty sleep.”
“Of course,” I said, getting off of his bed. “I’ll get out of your hair.”
“Oh if you were in my hair, darling, we’d be having a much different conversation,” Rio said, stretching out on his bed like a cat and giving me a heavy-lidded look.
I gave a short laugh and walked to the door. “Right. I’ll see you tomorrow. Or – it is tomorrow – I’ll see you later today. Sleep well.”
“And you too, milady. Let me know if you change your mind about beating up and-or killing the dragon-kin. I’m always up to it.” He flopped on his back.
“I will,” I said. “Good night.”
“Good morning!” Rio corrected as I shut the door.
I smiled a little and shook my head as I returned to my room. I froze as I saw Levent’s cloak swish through the doorframe ahead of me. He paused in the doorway and I came up behind him.
“Hello,” I said.
“Hello,” he said back with a nod. His eyes did not quite meet mine.
“I thought about what you said,” I said, looking more at the wall slightly behind his left arm than at him. “I’m going to try – no. I’m going to do something about it.”
The dragon-kin looked at me for a second and then finished walking into the room. I shut the door behind us and shuffled over to my divider. Before I ducked behind it to grab a little more sleep before daylight, I turned back. Levent was waiting for me to walk away before he took his cloak off.
“And I just wanted to say… I’m sorry for being a burden. And thank you for coming to help me today.”
“Don’t be,” he said. “’Sorry’, I mean.”
I smiled a little and crawled into bed. A few minutes later, Levent put out the lanterns and got into his own bed. Daylight was already threatening to creep through the curtains. I let my tired body sink into the sheets and the comfortable darkness of sleep.
“Rise and shine!” I heard Rio shout from across the room.
I moaned, rolling over in a cocoon of blankets.
“Who let you in?” I mumbled as I tried to keep the sunlight out of my eyes.
“Levent did,” Rio said.