It was another week before I got that new shirt, and we dragged our carcasses into an inn with the promise of a bath. Rowan dropped by the counter of the inn and handed over a small bag of clinks. The metal cascaded with more noise than I was ready for. I cocked my head at him. He gave me that kind of smile that had no happy emotion to it, just an acknowledgement that he saw me. Farrow ducked, not meeting my eye when I glanced his way to see if he had an opinion. He always had an opinion. I frowned.

I followed them up the back steps where we dropped our bags and dusty cloaks in a room with two bedframes. Sleeping on the ground didn’t bother me as much anymore, not with so many miles under our feet. My back had stopped crying at me about the time we’d started climbing the foothills. I just didn’t want to get stepped on in the middle of the night.

Rowan handed me a separate key as I went to lay out my cloak near the fireplace. He couldn’t quite get his tongue to work.

I stared at it, the rough cast metal cold in my palm. “We can just share the room, Rowan. This is too expensi-”

“I can’t.” Rowan pulled his boots off to set under one of the bedframes. He dug out thin sandles to let his swollen feet relax.

“You can’t? I don’t think I -”

“It’s just the season, Matchstick.”

“It’s mid-autumn. How does that have-”

Rowan shot me a quelling glance that made me stutter.

“I don’t understand.” I dropped the key on his bed and made to leave. If he was going to keep interrupting with non-answers, I wasn’t going to deal with him until he could be clear. He had been short with me all day. Testy to a t. I couldn’t imagine replacing the shirt he’d ripped off me was that expensive to replace. I didn’t even want Yujin nobility clothes. Just something that didn’t suck. Which proved to be Faybar clothing with their corseted waste and satin finished cloth. It felt more like a smooth hug.

Farrow stood quickly, unsteadily. “It’s not that, Tan.”

I regarded him, my frown deepening. What else had I done to piss off Rowan then?

Farrow rubbed the back of his neck, sweat building a fine glisten across his skin. The fire wasn’t roaring.

“You paid enough clink to keep us here for how many days?” I turned my question to Rowan. His head bowed, he wouldn’t look at me. It felt like he was… “Are you embarrassed? I guess I can go find a different shirt. Thought this one was just comfortable.”

He ducked at the question. “Not the shirt.” Farrow turned from catching my eye.

“Look, I appreciate the space, but we need to save some money here. I can take the key back down and get you your clink back on it, Rowan. Return the shirt while I’m at it, I guess. Didn’t realize it’d embarrass you to have me wearing it.” I made to pick up the key I had tossed on the covers. He grabbed my hand, his palm burning up. I clamped a hand across his forehead, his temperature scalding.

“You’re sick! Why didn’t you tell me, you fool? I need to get you a doctor.” I tugged to free my hand.

“We’re not sick!” Farrow waved off the comment.

“He has a fever.” I reached across to Farrow to check his to only have his throat catch, the noise shooting through my spine. “What was that?”

“Do you not have seasons in your world?” Rowan let go of my hand, his growl creeping along my skin.

“Spring, winter, autumn, summer – same as here?” I couldn’t quite grasp what was happening.

“Not that season,” Farrow huffed, though his stutter reminded me of something that I didn’t want to name, not yet, not if I was wrong.

“Ya’ll have said seasons before. Wait. Wait. Not human. You aren’t human, and I’m not either.” My tongue stuck thickly behind my teeth. Rowan still wouldn’t meet my eye. I lifted my chin to regard him closely. “Is this a Rugoshi issue? But how can it also be Karamide? I don’t understand.” I refused to make the wild guess.

“No, we aren’t human like your prior soul, Matchstick. You’re different from us enough to not have seasons. Yujin don’t get them.” Rowan hesitated through his explanation.

“Yujin don’t get seasons,” I tasted the words, my suspicions growing. “But you’re both male.” I took a shot in the dark.

“So?” Farrow blinked at me like that conclusion was daft.

“Before I make a complete idiot out of myself, I do ask you to speak plain.” I settled onto the floor near the fireplace so that I could see both these men looking like they were barely stopping themselves from coming unglued in embarrassment.

“It’s our season, Tanwyn. Cycles line up if you travel together, so it hit. Now we’re here for the next five-” Farrow looked to Rowan with a question, and Rowan shifted his head for more, “seven days until it blows over.”

“Season. Season like what I would know as heat, like dogs and cats go into heat?” I ventured gently, still very confused.

Rowan ducked at that. “Yes, Matchstick, like animals.”

I startled at his growl. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”

“No, you didn’t. Yujin just-” he went to snarl then met my eyes, then traveled down my Faybar outfit and up, his pupils dilating into massive orbs. “You don’t know.”

“Humans don’t cycle like that. Women get their periods every 28 days for about a week, but they ovulate like mid cycle. It’s just something we learn to deal with.”

“We?” Farrow asked.

“Was born female in the other world.” I rolled a shoulder.

“Sorry, forgot.”

“Then it is not much different between human and Yujin, that you might not know.” Rowan’s grip on his bedcover had tightened to white knuckles.

“Know? I don’t exactly understand when men would experience a cycle. That doesn’t make-”

Farrow coughed at that.

“Rugoshi, Karamide, Twilig, Faybar – Yujin are the odd ones in this world. You are the only ones whose males can’t bear children.” Rowan’s glance slid from my face to the fireplace.

I blinked. I couldn’t quite drag air into my lungs. “You said what now?”

Farrow shrugged. “Yeah, so we’re just in season and need to take a break for a while before we keep going.”

“Back up there, Sparrow bones. You can have kids?” I couldn’t quite feel my fingertips.

“Yujin males can’t. The rest of the Peoples can.”

“How?” My brain was muddling.

“When a two get pressed-” Farrow started to grouse, but he glanced my way and noticed my eyes bouncing across all of him. He swallowed hard. “You really don’t know, do you?”

“I have worked very hard at ignoring a great many things this world wants me to see through. I haven’t let it show me the inside of you or Rowan. I refuse. That would be a breach of privacy I can’t go past. No, I don’t understand. And I don’t have Wallace’s memories, if she was ever instructed on the other species’ biologies. Men don’t get pregnant in my world. I am very confused.” I hoped that maybe they would hear me this time. “Do you cramp? Do you bleed? Do I need to find you pads, or advil or some pain meds? A hot water bottle. Do you even have chocolate? No, you didn’t. Or coffee either. I guess seeing as it’s season, you’d probably be ovulating, so I guess bleeding would be a mid-season thing? I don’t get this. Seasons in my world is just an old term for when people would go to dances and try to find someone to marry – not…not this!”

Rowan blinked at me and twisted his head like a dog. “Bleed? Why would you bleed during a non- season?”

“Why wouldn’t you? Uterus sheds it’s lining and you bleed everywhere. You don’t bleed?”

“That’s disturbing. No, no bleeding. None of us do that.”

“None? Men and women both?” I gasped.

“No, neither. Did you? No wonder you didn’t panic about bleeding like that with that wild gussnee.”

“Of course, every 28 days like clockwork for a week. Hurt like hell too. I won’t complain about never doing that again. Never did get used to the bleeding.” I shrugged.

Rowan looked at me horrified. “We don’t bleed in non-season. But in season we do get…” He shot a look to Farrow to help.

“Uncomfortable might be a nice phrase,” Farrow offered.

“I can go get you anything if that’ll help,” I offered, scrambling to my feet.

Rowan snatched my hand as I went for the key again. “I don’t think you understand what type of offer you make, Matchstick.”

I raised an eyebrow. Then some dusty cog in my head clicked. “Seasons aren’t dating or dancing.” My mouth felt sticky, like it was coated in thick peanut butter. Then late nights spent reading raunchy fanfic online came to mind. “Heat. You’re in heat. You’re not experiencing a menstrual. You’re – you’re horny aren’t you?”

“Horny, he says,” scoffed Farrow while Rowan’s thumb running over my wrist made me shiver.

“Horny is a regular day. Season’s are something else, Matchstick.”

I paused, searching his eyes as I tried to understand. I touched the tip of my tongue to the bottom of my lip as my throat went dry. What I found in his eyes was a type of begging I hadn’t experienced before and it was lighting a fire somewhere below the belt.

“You got me a separate room.” I glanced between the two, trying desperately to understand all the subtext that had clearly gone beyond me by now. “I’ll leave you two to your own devices, then?” I offered, voice cracking, betraying my feeling of confusion. That had to be it. Rowan had paid for the spare room for me. He and Farrow had already claimed the two beds. They were kicking me out. I needed to leave. I was making things awkward for them by being here.

Rowan’s eyes, I would have hoped would have softened in the moment, but instead they regarded me, hard and glittering in that low firelight.

“How often is this going to happen, while we reach your homeland, if I might ask?” I asked delicately. Rowan had yet to let go of my hand.

“Sixty days.” He paced his words like each one was disappearing from his mind with the effort. “‘Like clockwork’ as you say. Or, at least it had, until-” He looked away, dropping my hand like I had scalded him.

“Something I’ve done?” I guessed, grabbing the key and getting out of the room. I made for my own, unlocked it quickly and tripped in, immediately closing and locking it behind me. I had left my pack in their room. I leaned the back of my head against the door and groaned. I either needed a beer or a library, and one of those would be more informative than the other. I ran a hand through my hair. I could also do with a bath. With a second groan, I left my room, locked it and made my way down the stairs. At the inn counter I fumbled through asking for help from the lady. Eventually she directed me to the local apothecary. There was no library to be had outside of the mayor’s manor, and I had no interest in drawing nobles’ attention, not as the prince of Herenhuis.

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