"Yeah, we all deserve butlers'n four course meals," Daryl says with a little roll of his eyes. But it's not totally dismissive, not to her at least, the totality of her. She's too vast to ever be insulted by one thing. Rani is harder than most to pin down.

Daryl thinks it's because she keeps her pride in a safe place, hidden somewhere far away from her heart. Late at night, he imagines it's in that flask hanging from her throat, hidden sometimes by the scarves she collects. That's where the real Rani lives, the one who was a person before the blackness hit her veins and turned her blood. The secret part of her that laughs at his jokes, that talks about men and women hundreds of years dead, that tells the stories woven in the stars.

That's not how she is right now. Beckoning to him from her little throne of ratty blankets and pillows leaking stained foam stuffing, Rani is playing the ancient queen.

He takes her hand. "Hey," he says, and clasps his hand in hers.