Chapter 24: No Term

In the spring they went back down to the clinic to sign the new contract.

Miranda had insisted on the same table.

It stood in the back room where it had always stood, with the same scratched top and the same lamp.

The copper tub gleamed through the bathroom door.

Cavan lowered himself into the chair with both hands under his belly.

Fenny sat down next to him a good deal more slowly.

They were eight months along, to the day, and neither could see their own feet.

"You look ridiculous," Cavan said fondly.

"So do you, Your Highness."

King Alex stood by the window with his hands behind his back.

Miranda took the head of the table and unrolled a sheet of heavy paper, and pushed her spectacles up her nose.

"I drafted this one myself," she said. "I did the first one in a hurry."

"You did," said Fenny.

"I was frightened for my son."

"I know."

"I'm still frightened. It's a different kind." She smoothed the paper. "Read it."

Fenny drew it toward him.

The first clause was short.

This contract has no term.

The second was shorter.

Touch is never limited to the clinical.

Fenny laughed out loud, and wiped his eye with a knuckle.

The third said nothing about marks, because there was nothing left to forbid.

The fourth said that the Luna of Goldridge kept his clinic, his books and his own door.

No one in the Hall would ever ask him to give them up.

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