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He didn’t hear anything right off, though oddly he did notice MeLaan whispering to herself. As he listened, she modulated her voice, making it deeper—though still feminine. She repeated a few words to herself.

“She woulda been a twofie,” Wayne noted, eyes still closed.

“Hm?” MeLaan said.

“Your bones,” Wayne said. “Woman you’re wearin’ right now. Twofie. Second Octant. Raised on the outskirts.”

“And how do you know that?” MeLaan asked.

“Heard her curse as I was helpin’ her,” Wayne said, feeling a stab of regret. The woman had just been doing her job, trying to keep someone from being killed.

She’s still doing her job though, he thought, cracking an eye and looking at MeLaan. Her bones are, at least. Given the choice, if he died while trying to do something important, he’d rather that his bones get up and see it done right. Hell, with some kandra friends, he could be annoying Steris well into the afterlife.

“Like this?” MeLaan said. “Second Octant, touch of agave farmer?”

“Nice,” Wayne said. “Draw out the end of your sentences, pitch them lower. Get some real twofie into that voice.”

“Is this better?”

“Yeah, actually,” Wayne said, sitting up. “That’s damn good.”

“TenSoon would be proud,” MeLaan said. “I can still get a difficult accent right, when I need to.”

“Difficult?” Wayne said. “The twofie accent?”

“With agave farmer.”

“Common mix,” Wayne said. “Once, I hadda do a guy who grew up on the northwestern coast, raised by deaf parents, only talking once in a while—who had then moved in with the Terris fundamentalists up in the mountains there.”

MeLaan frowned as a servant bustled past carrying linen. Some of the executive staff were going to be staying through the night, what was left of it, and guest rooms needed to be prepared. “I don’t know if I can do that,” MeLaan said, talking in a slow, deliberate way, with a hint of Terris and a lot of slurred words. “But it does sound like fun.”

“Ha!” Wayne said, turning on the accent, which was actually more clipped than MeLaan had made it. “Good, but you’re trying too hard. Being raised by parents who can’t hear doesn’t make a chap stupid. He just looks at the world differently, see?”

“Not bad,” MeLaan said. The next servant who passed gave them a glare as she had to pick her way over their outstretched legs in the hallway.

“It’s better if I have a hat,” Wayne said.

“A … hat.”

“Sure,” Wayne said. “Hats is a disguise for your brain. Helps you think like the person what wore it last. You wanna know a guy? Put on his hat.”

“Has anyone ever told you that you’re surprisingly wise?” MeLaan asked.

“All the bloody time.”

“They’re idiots. You’re not wise, you’re playing them. You’re doing this on purpose.” She grinned. “I love it.”

Wayne tipped his hat forward, smiling and leaning back again. “I’m not lying ’bout the hats though. They do help.”

“Sure,” MeLaan said. “Like bones.”

He cracked an eye at her. “Does it ever … bother you? Knowin’ you might live forever?”

“Bother me? Why would it? Immortality is damn convenient.”

“Don’t know about that,” Wayne said. “Seems to me that it would be nice to finally be done, you know? It’s like … like you’re running a race, and you don’t know quite where the end is, but you got an idea. An’ you only need to make it that far. I can do that, I figure. But you, you don’t have no end.”

“You actually sound like you want to die.”

“Someday,” Wayne said. “Huh. Maybe I should get into politics.”

MeLaan shook her head at him, seeming bemused. “It can be daunting,” she admitted a short time later, “to consider eternity, as Harmony must see it. But anytime I get bored, I can just live a new life.”

“Put on a new hat,” Wayne said. “Become someone else.”

“Switch it up. Be bold where once I was timid. Be crass where I was respectful. Makes life interesting, dynamic.” She paused. “And there’s something else. We can die, if we want.”

“What, just like that?”

“Kinda,” MeLaan said. “Don’t know if you’ve read the accounts. They’re blurry about this topic anyway, but near the end of the World of Ash, Ruin tried to take over the kandra. Control them directly. Well, TenSoon and those in charge, they were really terrified by that. So they planned, and we all talked. And about a century after the Catacendre, we figured out a way to stop our own lives. Takes a little concentration, but sets the body into a spiral where we just … end.”

“Nice,” Wayne said, nodding. “That makes a lot of sense. Always have an escape route planned. Oh, and your ‘a’s are still off; you carried them over from your own accent. They aren’t nasal enough. Draw them out, if you wanna sound like a real twofie.”

She cocked her head at him. “You’re wasted as a human.”

“Nah,” Wayne said. “I’ve barely had a few mouthfuls today.” He reached in his pocket and checked his flask. “Well, maybe a wee more than that.”

“No, I meant—”