She reached up and killed the lamp.
The room dropped into blue. Just the Ring, throwing its light across the ceiling in slow waves. Her face floated in it. Silver hair gone pale as milk. Purple eyes gone dark as a bruise.
"Take the shirt off," she said.
"Which one of us?"
"Yours. I like this one." She plucked at the fabric hanging off her shoulder. "I'm keeping it."
"That's my shirt."
"I know. That's why I'm keeping it."
I pulled mine over my head. Her eyes moved down my chest and stopped at the fifth node, that spot over my sternum where the pendant sat and where something inside me pulsed in a rhythm that wasn't quite my heart. Her expression flickered. Fear underneath the want. She reached out and pressed two fingers there, and the Ring answered, cold blooming across my skin where she touched.
"It's warmer than the rest of you," she said.
"Yeah."
"It shouldn't be."
"Lot of things shouldn't be."
