Teegan's inner city apartment wasn't an 'apartment' at all, but a living situation that would give Montague a field day. Located in the old Atundan University grounds, on the top story of the demolition-marked section of the science building, Teegan led him with the irrational confidence of someone who'd become so used to being a squatter, she'd almost forgotten it was even slightly unusual.

Dec paused at the base of a plastic-covered scaffold and a set of stairs and checked the time. Their journey back to Atunda had taken longer than expected, partly due to the fact that Frankenstein refused to go more than 50 km an hour and Teegan's habit of slowing down every time they passed the city's infamous scrap metal sculptures that lined the freeway.

"That's Minister Bloomfriar," she'd said as they'd passed the hulking desert fly with bulging eyes made from mosquito coils and spindly legs from an old television antenna. "And Officer Montague," she'd added of the large crustacean with a shell cut from a series of car doors. And finally, "That's Lazar Moto," about the scarecrow with the funny neck handkerchief made from razor wire.

"How do you know Lazar?" Dec had asked, discomfort spiking at the mention of the name.

"Chook knows him," Teegan had said. "Lazar has been trying to recruit him for some special assignment. Which is why we were fighting."

Dec had fallen silent after that. While he was sure the curl of Teegan's lip, betrayed her true feelings about the magician. He couldn't be sure. And he didn't want to say anything to get himself in trouble.

"Maybe I can get the money from you another time," he said now, pausing for breath between one rickety flight of stairs and the next. He thought of Chook, the grappler, and didn't fancy having his head split open if he got caught going up to Teegan's apartment. And then there was Lazar. If Teegan and Chook bought their luminite from Lazar, by selling Teegan his luminite, was he undercutting Lazar's market? The last thing he wanted was for such a rich and powerful man to think he was a rat.

Teegan turned back down the stairs. "Why? Think I'll try to make a pass at you or something?" She winked.

Dec flushed. "... no, of course not."

"Well, what's the problem? It's not much further. And I'll pay you in advance for the next lot."

Dec looked up and thought of Adele. He should've simply said goodbye to Teegan at the train stop and got himself home to check on her. Too late now.

"Bloody hell," he muttered to himself. Better get this over with.

Teegan's 'apartment' not so much an apartment as an old, disused laboratory—white, sterile, bathed in cool moonlight from a single, tiny, pane-less window on the far side. Stainless steel trestle tables lined each wall.

Her footsteps echoed on the cement floor as she made her way to a gas burner just inside the entrance, positioned it beneath a retort stand holding a conical flask of bright blue liquid. Around the room, more conical flasks with identical substances stood at meter intervals, connected by a thin strand of copper wire. After a few seconds, the liquid in the first flask glowed a pale blue and the copper wire buzzed. Soon the next flask glowed blue and so on until the perimeter of the room was lit by the nine glowing flasks.

Dec felt his breath escape. "How...?"

"Not many people know you can use luminite this way," Teegan said. "Lasts as long as a light bulb. It's cheaper than running electricity. Just don't try it unless you've got the right equipment. I almost gave myself a new hairstyle once by accidentally mixing my methods."

"Impressive."

Teegan sighed. "Chook didn't think so."

"So... this is where you live?"

Teegan shrugged. "I used to spend a bit of time at Chook's, but ..." she picked up a flask from a rack in the corner and filled it from a large bucket of water. Securing it over a spare bunsen burner, she placed a tea bag inside and arranged a packet of biscuits on an evaporating dish.

Despite himself, Dec's mouth began to water. "So, you live here alone?"

"Yes. I'm an orphan."

Dec swallowed. "I'm sorry, I didn't ..."

"It's fine, Dec. 'Orphan'—" She made quotations over the word with her fingers. "Not the dictionary definition of it, I guess." She steeped his tea and passed it to him using a set of tongs. Placing the biscuits between them, she hopped onto the trestle table. "My parents used my grandparent's inheritance to buy property on the Eastern coast of the Isles right before the Northern re-settlement. They sent me to boarding school. I never heard from them again."

"So, they're not dead?"

"As good as," Teegan dunked her biscuit. "Boarding school was the best thing that ever happened to me."

Dec frowned. "Still, don't you miss them?"

"You didn't know my parents."

Dec took a sip of his tea. It was the perfect temperature. Not too hot, not too cold so that it dulled what remained of his headache. He took another sip, then drank deeply, feeling his tension headache ease.

He tried to imagine what it would be like to be estranged from his family. Mel and Adele. All the drama with his mum. Running around after his sister. The constant worry that felt as though it was grinding him down from the inside. He sometimes wished he had none of it.

Guilt wrenched his stomach and he placed the tea back on the counter.

"... So, what's your sob story?" Teegan was saying.

"I thought you already knew everything about me," he said, remembering Teegan's very accurate analysis of his life that night at Mansions. "There's not much else to tell."

Teegan dunked her biscuit. "That's how you are now. Tell me how it used to be. Before all this." She gestured around.

She didn't have to specify. He knew what she meant. She meant before the Northern Invasion. Before it all turned to shit.

Perhaps it was the tea. Perhaps it was the residue guilt he felt about his feelings for his family. Whatever it was, he found himself reaching towards a memory. A memory of when things had been good... when he hadn't resented Adele, his sister, or Tommy. Like that time they lived in Quarry Cove...

"Tommy and I once went to our local dump in Quarry Cove. We collected a whole bunch of old spray cans, brought them back to an empty field on the Peninsular and set them alight to see if they'd explode. We forgot the extinguisher and when the North wind changed directions, the fire went uphill, following the dry grassland towards the pine forest. We panicked and ran away. Luckily, someone in the nearby town had seen the smoke and raised the alarm before the blaze could pick up too much speed. "

"Were you caught?"

"Nope. But still to this day, I sometimes wake in a sweat, thinking they've figured it out and have come to arrest me for arsen."

"Sounds like a shit time to me."

Dec snorted. "I guess it was. But it was the last time Tommy and I were, you know. right."

It was Teegan's turn to snort. Her snort turned to laughter and soon, they were both bent over in stitches.

Teegan asked, "Do you ever wish you could just disappear for a while, go into hibernation until the world rights itself and then come back?" She wiped biscuit crumbs from her jeans.

"Maybe this is the golden age and we just don't know it."

Teegan rolled her eyes. "That's why I like being in the lab. It's like, nothing else exists except the compounds and the mixtures, adding and subtracting a little of this and a little of that until you make something completely different. Like magic, you know?"

Dec smiled. "Mad scientist much?"

Teegan laughed and flipped her head over to make her baby fine hair look like it was suspended around her head by static electricity. She leaned into him. "Scared?"

Without thinking, Dec moved to smooth her hair back down... and stopped. His hand hovered between them. Teegan looked at it through her messy strands.

For the first time in a long time, his heart leapt into gear, his stomach turned in a series of bunny-hops and he forgot where he was, what he was, and who he had to be for all those people outside that door. For once in his life, he let himself be drawn forward and...

The kiss was brief but it left his lips tingling. When Teegan pulled away, he found himself pressing in for more, keeping closeness, like one does when whispering a secret. The cold, heavy press of his problems was gone. There was just warm breath and smooth skin.

"Interesting," Teegan whispered, her breath leaving cool residue on his cheek. She leaned back, head tilted, considering. "So, you're not gay."

He jerked back, as though suddenly bathed in cold water. "Sorry?"

"Psychology major remember?" Teegan said. "I thought you might've been gay when I met you at Mansions."

"Why?"

"You didn't look at me like most guys in that club."

Dec placed his empty flask on the counter. "I guess your deduction skills are in need of fine-tuning." He hopped off the counter. "I should go."

"Wait. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to—"

Dec waived his hand. "It's fine. There's some stuff I gotta do, that's all." Like check on Adele.

"Wait," Teegan said again, gripping the door handle as he reached for it.

"What?"

"The luminite?"

In the awkward silence that followed, he remembered the whole reason he was there in the first place. Extracting the packet from his pocket, which had crumpled and molded to the shape of his right ass cheek from sitting on it, he handed it to her without reverence.

She withdrew an equally crumpled fifty sol note from her pocket, imprinted with the blow-fly face of their dead minister and handed it to him slowly. "There's extra in there for putting up with my long-winded stories."

"Thanks," he said, opening the door.

She grasped his hand. "Wait. Have my number so we can arrange pickup for the rest of the Luminite." Her fingers clicked his palm pod. Her touch was soft.

They exchanged numbers and he left her apartment. Dec rubbed his forehead as the throb of his headache returned.