"When you had a sword against my neck, you weren't trembling like this."
The observation left Gaelira without an immediate response. Clarke was still too close, her fingers around the ointment jar and a smile trying to look confident.
Gaelira lowered her gaze toward her own hands. The trembling was slight, but impossible to deny after Clarke had pointed it out.
Then she realized something much more interesting.
"To notice that, you had to be watching them," she replied as she slowly raised her gaze. "Why were you paying so much attention to my hands?"
Clarke's smile lost some of its confidence. Her fingers released the jar and closed around the towel before it could slip.
"They were on my shoulders," she explained. "It was hard not to notice them."
"You also looked at my lips."
Clarke opened her mouth, but no answer came out. The reddish color that had previously covered only her ears began spreading across her cheeks.
Gaelira felt herself regain some control of the conversation. Her heart was still beating too fast, although discovering that Clarke was not calm either was strangely satisfying.
"I don't know what you're talking about," the Moonveil girl claimed while looking away. "You must have imagined it because of the steam."
"You were close enough for me to tell where you were looking."
Clarke faced her again. The distance between them was still small, but neither made the slightest effort to increase it.
"And why were you watching me so closely?" Clarke asked.
The question brought the heat back to Gaelira's face. She had been so focused on cornering her rival that she had not considered the argument could also be used against her.
"I was putting on your bandage."
"You were already finished."
Gaelira looked at the knot secured around Clarke's torso. There was no medical reason to remain there after confirming that it was firm.
Even so, she had stayed sitting behind her, watching the drops running down her neck and waiting for something she did not know how to name.
"I wanted to make sure it wouldn't come loose," she finally replied.
Clarke raised one hand and touched the bandage. "It seems pretty secure."
"That doesn't explain why you're still looking at me."
Gaelira held her gaze and wondered when the conversation had stopped being a competition. Clarke no longer seemed interested in getting a clever answer.
She was waiting for something different. Something Gaelira was not yet ready to say.
Clarke took half a step toward her. The steam moved around her body and hid part of her figure, although it could not conceal the movement of her breathing.
Gaelira should have stepped back. Instead, she remained still while her rival moved close enough that their towels almost touched.
"Are you still trembling?" Clarke asked quietly.
Gaelira raised one hand and placed it over the girl's wrist. The pulse beneath her fingers was racing just as fast as her own.
"I'm not the only one."
Clarke lowered her gaze toward where Gaelira was touching her. The confidence disappeared from her expression, replaced by a vulnerability Gaelira had only seen while tending to her wound.
For several seconds, the only thing they heard was the water falling from the statues. Clarke did not pull her wrist away, and Gaelira did not release her hand.
A noise from the changing room broke the silence.
The door began to open before either of them could react. Clarke stepped back and Gaelira released her wrist so quickly that she nearly knocked over the ointment jar.
A student entered the bathhouse carrying a towel and a small basket of personal items. She seemed to belong to a higher year, although Gaelira did not recognize the symbol embroidered on her robe.
The newcomer looked first at Clarke, then at Gaelira, and finally at the short distance still separating them.
"Good evening," she greeted with complete normality.
"Good evening," Gaelira replied far too quickly.
Clarke picked up her clothes from the bench and held the jar against her chest. "We're done."
The student raised an eyebrow slightly, but did not ask what they had finished. She headed toward the showers while humming a melody and left her basket near one of the pools.
Clarke waited until she disappeared behind a column before looking at Gaelira again. The vulnerable expression had completely vanished.
"Nothing happened," she declared.
Gaelira had to suppress a smile. "I didn't say anything happened."
Clarke pressed her lips together and pointed toward the pools located at opposite ends of the room. A low stone wall divided the two areas and allowed students to enjoy the water without having to look at each other.
"I'll use that one," she announced. "You can choose any other."
"I'm trying to bathe without hearing your voice."
Clarke headed toward the farthest pool without giving her a chance to respond. Gaelira watched her disappear behind the wall and waited several seconds before choosing the hot pool on the opposite side.
The hot water reached her shoulders as she descended the steps. Small bubbles rose from the stones at the bottom, creating a sensation somewhere between a pool and a room filled with steam.
Gaelira rested her head against the edge and allowed her muscles to relax. On the other side of the wall, she heard the water move as Clarke entered her own pool.
Neither spoke for a while.
"What happened tonight stays here," Clarke finally said from the other side.
Gaelira watched the steam gathering above the water. "Do you mean the injury, the fact that you needed help, or that you were just as nervous as I was?"
Clarke's silence lasted long enough to answer for her.
"All of it," she said afterward.
"Then you'll have to keep the same secret."
"I have nothing to tell."
"Perfect. We agree."
Gaelira closed her eyes with a smile. She heard another movement behind the wall, followed by footsteps that could have belonged to Clarke or the student who had interrupted them.
She did not try to find out.
For the first time since waking in that world, there was no test waiting in front of her, no professor demanding results, and no sword pointed at her body.
There was only the hot water, the steam, and a few minutes when she did not need to solve anything.
Gaelira breathed slowly and began reviewing everything that had happened since she opened her eyes.
Then she realized something she had not stopped to consider until that moment.
She had only been in that world for five days.
Five days inside another body, far from her mother and surrounded by a life that already felt almost unrecognizable.