As Raleigh waited for Lin, she finished her lunch and drank some water, then kept poking through Janni’s contact list, wondering who most of the people were.

The door opened, and Lin edged in, glancing around and quickly shutting the door behind him. “You shouldn’t leave that open.”

She frowned at the door. “I didn’t.” But Raleigh couldn’t imagine Kitten leaving the door unlocked, either.

Lin frowned back, glanced around the room, and focused on the Jenga game. He went to it, reaching for the block the ‘damaged’ Kitten had put down, but he didn’t touch it.

“Someone’s been Jumping,” he muttered, forehead scrunched as if he had a headache.

“What?”

“Time jumping,” he absentmindedly clarified, still frowning, and gave his temple a brisk rub.

Kitten had looked more tired than Raleigh had thought could be accounted for by a few hours. She looked down the hall, where the girl had gone—and where Raleigh now suspected she wouldn’t be able to find her. “What?”

“Janni was playing the game?”

“Kit—” Raleigh remembered the girl was Nameless. “Third.”

His frown deepened. “Another jumper?”

She froze. “I thought jumpers Jumped universes.”

He shrugged. “Universes…time… Pretty similar, though jumpers tend to specialize in one or the other.” He paused and glanced at Raleigh, but his tone was conversational, not critical. “I thought First was missing.”

She shrugged. “Third showed up by herself, looking like something a medic had dragged in. That was a guess. Why?”

The door opened, and Kitten’s brother entered, his attention focused on Lin—warily, Raleigh thought, realizing First was a bit more expressive than his sister.

“Sir,” First said.

Ah. So First was not missing. She wondered what Third’s stare had been for.

Lin waved dismissively, scrutinizing the tower. “This me is not your keeper.”

First’s gaze narrowed, making Raleigh wonder if Lin’s casual words were somehow insulting. “No, my keeper slit his own throat once we reached a universe without Nameless.”

Lin turned sharply towards him, and the two men exchanged a long look.

“Well, then,” Lin said quietly, breaking the silence. “It’s a good thing I’m not from your universe, isn’t it?”

Raleigh was beginning to feel as if she should make a flow chart to keep track of who all was from which universe and what their relationships were.

Lin went to the kitchen found the glasses on the first try. “You registered?”

“Nev is,” First answered immediately.

Lin filled two glasses with water. “Ah, you have a Nev.” He handed one glass to First, who accepted.

They each took a sip, looking eerily similar, despite being two distinctly different people.

Lin swigged the rest of his water, then fiddled with his glass. “You take a name yet?”

First glanced away. “We were waiting for Third.”

Lin nodded, as if that made sense. “I’m sorry about Dasher—ah, Second. She wasn’t anyone I wanted to know, in my universe, but she turns out well in the universes where she gets you.”

From the startled glance First tossed at Lin, he didn’t find the other man’s words as insensitive as Raleigh did.

“Thank you,” First said quietly, sounding…grateful.

Lin shrugged. “My universe favored death over namelessness. I look at you, I see a person.”

“A sentimental TamLin.” First shook his head, as if he found the concept hard to believe. “Do I make Naming, in any universe?”

Lin—which was evidently short for TamLin—gave First a steady scrutiny, then went to the sink for more water. “Damarc-Luc Waver, diminutive Marc. He’s an admin in Shadow Corps.” He filled his glass, then returned, giving First a quick grin as he sat back down. “We meet for drinks, sometimes.”

First blinked once. “You aren’t registered.”

“He’s administration, not field or tactical. Not required to report non-registrants.” Lin shrugged. “Besides, he has to keep his doors open, if he wants to have a shot at saving his Nev once—well. Let’s just say Nev’s particularly ill-suited to Jumping, no matter which universe she’s from.”

First snorted, as if amused, but he seemed…pensive.

“This male bonding is all very nice,” Raleigh cut in, “but where’s Third?”

The two men exchanged an Isn’t it obvious? glance.

“Fleeing Nev,” Lin said mildly. “Speaking of which…” He turned to the Jenga game, picked up the block Kitten had moved, and ran it through his hands, then slid it back into place in the tower. “That’s better.”

Raleigh looked at him, then at the specific block that he’d been careful to touch—a block that Kitten had handled on purpose. The man also accepted First’s glass and ran it through his hands on the way to set it in the sink.

She frowned. “Nev is psychoscopic?” If Janni could be a crippled telepath, why couldn’t her sister be able to read objects by touching them?

The men turned towards her, Lin’s dark and First’s blue, and pleasure softened both stares.

Neither spoke, though.

Raleigh rallied her nerves, ones that had carried her through military campaigns that she intentionally abused her software to keep herself from remembering clearly. “So now what do we do? Janni wanted me to call her.”

“No,” Lin said first, glancing at First before continuing, “Janni meets that Nev, one of them will have to kill the other. I don’t want… I don’t want her dead.”

Raleigh wondered what he’d edited out, but the answer of what to do was blatantly obvious. “So we find Nev and kill her first?”

Lin grimaced. The little emotion in First’s expression vanished, and he again reminded her of Kitten.

A logistics possibility occurred to Raleigh. “With Kitten’s…time jumping. Couldn’t we rescue Second?”

Lin looked away, whereas First studied Raleigh, as if seeing her for the first time.

After a long moment of silence, First turned his staid scrutiny on Lin and paused. Without looking away from the other man, he said, “Time jumping has limits. We could save a Second, but she wouldn’t be my Second. Third would’ve already fetched her, otherwise.”

Raleigh glanced at the Jenga game, which a future Kitten had evidently Jumped back in time to tweak, which had gotten Lin aware of the time jumping issues to begin with.

At least limitations meant that there were set cause and effect, even when the cause and effect were circular. “I’m sorry.”

First studied her again, and Raleigh got the impression that Nameless weren’t usually treated as people. She remembered his earlier statement that he and Second had been waiting to take names until Third was old enough to take one, too, and if she were reading the situation right, that waiting had cost Second her life.

She felt sorry for all three of them.

“Thank you,” he said quietly.

Raleigh grabbed her shattersilk trench coat and pulled it on, making sure it hid her tech, including the gills.

Even before she tapped the seal closed, First gave a slight shake of his head. “Miss—”

“Raleigh,” she offered, realizing she’d never told either man her name, but feeling a little guilty for using it when First didn’t have a name of his own.

“My universe’s Nev would wipe the floor with you,” First finished.

“With me too, probably,” Lin commented, “but Nev will expect you and me to be involved. Her? Who is she?” He glanced at her. “I mean, she won’t know you. Even if she’s bothered to observe and discover that you live with Janni, you’re…” He evidently decided against insulting her body’s tech upgrades. “No offense intended.”

“None taken,” Raleigh said coolly, meeting First’s gaze.

He still watched her sedately, but the very fact that he was scrutinizing her and not acting suggested he didn’t like the idea.

“I was military, in my ’verse,” she told him, tapping her collar where it hid gills. “The memories are blocked, not deleted. I can restore them, if necessary.” She hoped it wouldn’t be necessary.

“This me probably won’t be much use in a fight.” Lin paused, then amended, “Compared to your universe, I mean. But somebody has to find Janni, and I don’t think you want to end up registered with Shadow Corps,”—First’s grimace said Lin’s assumption was correct—“so I’ll busy myself with that.”

Lin quickly washed the cups, set them to dry, and headed out—making Raleigh wonder why he and Janni were so estranged. He seemed nice, thoughtful.

She also found herself wishing she’d kept the mugger’s knife that morning, instead of giving it to Kitten, but it was no use changing her mind now. She’d find a weapon somewhere. She headed for the door.

“Forgetting something?” First asked.

She turned. He pulled the chair by the Jenga game out from the table and picked something off the seat.

The knife from that morning.

One-handed, First turned the knife to offer to her, hilt-first, his ease and economy of motion betraying him as someone well used to blades.

Future-Kitten must’ve left it when she came by, but why hadn’t Lin noticed it? He’d noticed the Jenga block, and Kitten hadn’t worn that.

First studied her, still offering the knife. “Raleigh?”

She gave herself a shake and took it. “Sorry, just… Sorry.”

“Not used to time jumping, I take it?”

She shuddered as she stepped out the door. “No.”

He followed and gave a slight smile, shutting the door behind him and tapping it to lock. “You’ll get used to it.”

Raleigh stared at his hand for a long moment. It was strong and callused, crisscrossed with faint scars like the rest of him was, though most people would have to be close to him, to see that. “I’d rather not.”