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I was worried I was being punished, then she moved her wet hair to one side and I could see the curve of her neck. I reached for her instinctively, like anyone would a lover, only to have my tentacle taste her window’s glass.
“Let’s start with your symbols first,” she thought at me, while she turned on her screen, making a grid. I could see it over her shoulder, and then I felt her pout. “Did you happen to count how many symbols there were across the whole thing?”
“I did not. I can tomorrow.”
“Please.” She tapped into the grid she’d created. “Okay—give me the first symbol in the uppermost cover. And then we can go down, or across, whatever’s easiest for you, as long as we stay organized.”
I summoned up my vision and gently pushed it into her mind.
She gasped and tensed.
“Am I?—”
“Hurting me?” she guessed, quicker than I could finish asking. “No, it’s just strange, having your thoughts coming this direction.”
“It is,” I agreed. “Shall I show it to you again?” I asked, and she nodded. “Then relax. Breathe.”
“I’m not drowning,” she said ruefully—but this time she was more receptive. She took a moment, and then drew what she’d seen. “Is this it?” she asked, holding her tablet up over her shoulder.
“Yes,” I told her. “Also, you do not have to lift it. The window is curved. I am slightly above you, and I can see all of you from here.”
That made her tense again, and she wriggled to sit in a different way, pulling the neck of her shirt up.
“Is your clothing uncomfortable?” I guessed.
She shook her head. My mind was closer to hers now, so I could read scars-family-sorrow, flittering through her thoughts like the flutter of a sea fan, before being yanked away.
I got the feeling that it wasn’t just because of me—that she’d been living clamped down for quite some time.
“Are you ready for the second?” I asked, to change the subject.
She nodded, and I gave it to her.
It took almost two hours for her to get them all, but when we picked up speed, it was a thing of beauty. Me giving and her taking, both of us using all of our concentration on the effort, again and again and again. My pumping arm lowered without me thinking of it, and Balesur was right; I was so heavy with the thought of using it on her in the same way our minds were conversing, that I worried if it so much as tapped against her window it could’ve shattered the glass.
When we were through, I swam back so that couldn’t happen—and so she wouldn’t look back and accidentally spot a ninth lower-arm on me.
“What do you make of it?” I asked her, as she started sorting through the pictures.
“I don’t know yet.” She’d gotten up to get whatever food the other human woman had brought her halfway through, and was eating it hungrily, which pleased me. My mate needed her strength. “I don’t think it’s from any culture I know, and I have no idea how it got there to begin with. I can’t even say with certainty what it is.” She set her plate aside and got up to pace. “Did it used to be a building? Was it public art? A temple? A jail? Or another billionaire’s folly—some elaborate ruse, designed to waste Arcus Industrial’s money and time?” There were other things concerning her too, I could feel them. I wished I hadn’t sworn not to pry. “In any case—I need to spend the rest of the night transcribing the information from my camera feeds. You can go away now,” she said, dismissively.
I was not so easily dissuaded. “And just where do you think I would go to, Elle of the Air?”
She pouted out the window. “Were you going to watch me sleep?”
It didn’t seem worth lying about. “Yes. I am guarding you, after all.”
Her astonishment was obvious. “From what?” she sputtered.
“Currently? You, I think. You are tired. Your camera images can wait. Sleep well tonight and be more fresh tomorrow.” Her frown became more prominent. “I am not even reading your mind right now, Elle,” I went on. “It is written on your face.”
And that brought me a new flavor of her wrath. “Are you saying I look tired?”
I didn’t understand. “My job is to care for you. And true caring begins with honesty.”
Her jaw dropped, and I realized I might have said something wrong—but then she laughed. “Oh my God, Cepharius?—”
“You can call me Ceph.”
