The air in Lysa’s chamber was still, the only light a soft glow from the city beyond the balcony doors. They lay facing each other on the wide bed, both in their nightwear—Lysa in a simple silk chemise, Laura in the borrowed pajamas she wore over the ever-present Myrden suit. The fabric of the day, the tour, the baths, and the clothing generator hung between them, a silent, charged thing.

For a few seconds, there was only the sound of their breathing. Lysa’s eyes, dark and serious in the low light, searched Laura’s face.

“Vernon,” Lysa said softly, the name not a question but a confirmation, solid in the quiet room. “That’s your real name.”

Laura’s breath caught. The name was a key turning in a lock deep inside her chest. She felt the familiar, panicked urge to deny it, to cling to the armor of ‘Laura’. But Lysa’s gaze held no judgment, only a patient, aching curiosity. “Yes,” Laura whispered, the word leaving her like a surrender.

Lysa’s expression softened, but the intensity didn’t fade. “What do you look like,” she asked, her voice barely audible, “underneath all this?” Her hand lifted slightly from the bedcovers, a gesture toward Laura’s form, encompassing the wig, the suit, the beautiful lie.

The question wasn’t clinical. It was full of wonder, and a desire that made Laura’s heart hammer against her ribs. Before she could formulate an answer, Lysa moved. She closed the small distance between them and wrapped her arms around Laura, pulling her close, turning so she was hugging Laura from behind, her front pressed to Laura’s back. Laura could feel the warmth of Lysa’s body through their clothes, the gentle swell of her breasts against her shoulder blades. It was a protective, possessive embrace, and it shattered the last of Laura’s defenses.

“Lysa,” Laura breathed, her voice trembling.

“Do you really want to find out?” Laura asked, the words spoken into the room, to the woman holding her.

“Yes,” Lysa said immediately, her lips close to Laura’s ear. “I want to see you.”

Slowly, Laura turned in her arms until they were face to face again. Inches apart. She saw the trust in Lysa’s eyes, the fearless wanting. It gave her a courage she didn’t know she possessed. She leaned in and kissed her.

It was not a gentle, questioning kiss. It was an answer, a release, a floodgate breaking. Lysa met it with equal fervor, her hands coming up to cradle Laura’s face, her fingers tangling in the roots of the wig. Laura kissed her back, pouring weeks of fear, grief, and isolation into the connection of their mouths. Her hands found Lysa’s waist, pulling her closer until their bodies were aligned, curve to curve.

The kiss deepened, turned hungry. Hands began to move, to explore. Laura’s fingers fumbled with the tie of Lysa’s chemise, loosening it, slipping inside to find the warm, smooth skin of her back. Lysa’s own hands roamed over Laura’s shoulders, down her spine, learning the landscape of the Myrden suit beneath the thin pajamas.

Breathing heavily, Laura broke the kiss. Her eyes held Lysa’s. “Okay,” she said, the word a promise and a warning.

She reached up. With a deliberate motion, she found the nearly invisible seam at her hairline. There was a soft hiss of releasing vacuum seals. She lifted the specialized wig, the weight of Lauren Kerigan’s hair leaving her head, and set it carefully on the nightstand. Her own hair, Vernon’s hair, was short, damp with sweat, and plastered to her scalp.

Lysa watched, mesmerized, her lips parted. Laura then touched the subdermal node at her throat. She deactivated the vocal modulator. When she spoke again, her voice was lower, rougher, unmistakably male. It was Vernon’s true voice, unused for so long it sounded strange even to him.

“Is this better?” Vernon asked.

A shiver went through Lysa. She nodded, her eyes wide. “It’s you.”

Emboldened, Vernon sat back. He pulled the pajama top over his head, exposing the sleek, seamless surface of the Myrden bodysuit from the waist up. The feminine silhouette it created was flawless, the false breasts pert and realistic. He saw Lysa’s gaze fix on them, not with confusion, but with a fascinated hunger. He took her hand and guided it to his chest, placing her palm over the left prosthetic.

“Go on,” he murmured.

Lysa’s touch was tentative at first, then more sure. She cupped the false breast, her thumb brushing over the silicone nipple that reacted to temperature and touch just like real flesh. A soft gasp escaped her. She leaned in and kissed him again, her hand still on his chest. Then, growing bolder, she reached for the other, caressing it, learning its weight and shape. Vernon groaned into her mouth, the sensation a bizarre and potent mix—the touch was real, the pleasure was real, but the flesh under her hands was not.

“They come off,” Vernon whispered against her lips, his own hands busy pushing the straps of her chemise down her shoulders. “Do you want to see?”

“Yes,” Lysa breathed.

He guided her hands to the sides of each prosthetic, where the Myrden polymer seamlessly bonded to his skin. “You have to pull. Firmly. It won’t hurt.”

Lysa’s fingers found the edges. She looked into his eyes, seeking permission one last time. He nodded. With a determined breath, she pulled.

There was a soft, sucking release. The left prosthetic came free from the bodysuit’s adhesive layer, followed by the right. Lysa held them, these perfect, fabricated curves, for a moment, her expression one of awe. Then she gently placed them on the bed beside the wig. Vernon’s chest was now covered only by the thin, skin-tight base layer of the suit, flat and masculine.

The difference was shocking. Liberating. Vernon felt a rush of air on his skin, a return to a topography he knew. He saw the understanding dawn in Lysa’s eyes—the final piece of the disguise falling away. He pushed her chemise the rest of the way off, revealing her own breasts, small and perfect in the dim light. He bent his head and took one nipple into his mouth, sucking gently, his hands sliding down to her hips.

Lysa cried out, her back arching. Her hands were in his short hair, holding him to her. “Vernon,” she moaned, the name a prayer on her lips.

He worshipped her breasts with his mouth and hands until she was writhing beneath him. Then he sat back, his own need a painful, urgent pressure against the confines of the Myrden suit. He found the hidden zipper at the back of his neck. The sound of it unzipping was loud in the quiet room. He peeled the suit down his torso, his arms, pushing it past his hips. He kicked it off the bed, a puddle of advanced polymer on the floor.

He was naked. Fully, completely Vernon. His cock, hard and eager, stood out from his body. He was vulnerable in a way he had never been, every secret laid bare.

Lysa’s gaze traveled down his body, and he saw no shock, no revulsion, only a deep, burning appreciation. She moved without hesitation. Pushing him gently onto his back, she straddled his thighs, her eyes locked on his. Then she bent down and took him into her mouth.

The sensation was electric, overwhelming. Vernon’s head fell back against the pillows, a ragged cry torn from his throat. Her mouth was hot and wet and perfect, her tongue exploring him with a fearless curiosity that mirrored her earlier questions. She learned him, tasting him, her hands braced on his stomach. He tangled his hands in her hair, not guiding, just holding on as waves of pleasure crashed through him.

After a long, dizzying while, she released him with a soft pop and crawled back up his body. She faced him, her face flushed, her lips swollen. Her eyes searched his face—his real face, free of prosthetics, his Vernon face with its fine, Sylvan features.

“And this?” she asked, her fingers tracing his cheekbone, his jaw. “Is this your real face?”

“Yes,” he said, his voice hoarse. “This is me. This is what Arturus’s son looks like.”

A slow, beautiful smile spread across Lysa’s face. “It’s true,” she whispered, her thumb stroking his lower lip. “He does have a pretty woman’s face. A male Sylvan face.” There was no mockery in it, only awe and a fierce affection. She leaned down and kissed him again, deeply, her tongue sweeping into his mouth, letting him taste himself on her.

The kiss turned into a rolling, desperate tangle of limbs. Vernon flipped them over, settling between her thighs. He looked down at her, at this woman who had seen every layer of his deception and had only drawn closer.

“Are you sure?” he asked, the last bastion of his caution.

In answer, Lysa wrapped her legs around his hips and pulled him down. “I want all of you, Vernon,” she said, her voice firm. “Every part.”

He entered her in one slow, relentless stroke. They both cried out, a shared sound of relief and consummation. For Vernon, it was the first real, unmediated contact he’d had in what felt like a lifetime. The feel of her around him, hot and tight, the slide of her skin against his, the smell of her hair—it was devastatingly real. He began to move, setting a rhythm that was both tender and desperate.

Lysa matched him thrust for thrust, her nails scoring his back, her heels urging him deeper. She chanted his name, “Vernon, Vernon,” turning it from a secret into a truth, into a brand on his soul. He kissed her, swallowed her cries, lost himself in the dark pools of her eyes.

The world narrowed to the joining of their bodies, to sweat-slick skin and ragged breaths. The careful construction of Laura Kerigan lay discarded around them—wig, voice, curves, suit—nothing but artifacts of a survival that had led to this moment of profound, naked truth.

When his climax tore through him, it was with a force that felt like coming home. He buried his face in her neck, shuddering, as she tightened around him, her own release washing over her in silent, trembling waves.

For a long time afterward, they lay entwined in the quiet dark, the city’s glow painting their bodies in silver. Lysa’s head was on his shoulder, her hand resting on his now-flat, bare chest. Vernon stared at the ceiling, feeling more himself, and yet more fundamentally changed, than he ever had before. The disguise was off. The ally had become a lover. And for the first time since the black glass spires of Artanis fell, he was not alone.