It's so easy, the way she touches him. The way she dismisses necromancy like she isn't— won't be— the best in the universe, after him. She could still kick his ass on an anatomy test. He just does things, but Mercy knows them. He watched her learn.

This isn't Mercy, exactly. She pinches him and he makes a little sound of complaint. It's so easy he could laugh, he could break.

"Hell," says John, in genuine and faintly anguished astonishment, "I'd forgotten."

The silence is too big, in the wake of that. It is crowded with things he could say, things she could ask. His throat works with a hard swallow; the hitch of his breath disrupts the steady rhythm of her hair.

He settles on: "This one has more tentacles."