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Any chance I had of going quickly to sleep had entirely evaporated. I stared up at my ceiling after crawling into bed, wondering what on earth I’d gotten myself into and smiling.
chapter 29
ELLE
The next morning I raided every storage spot inside ALRI I could open, till I found what Ceph required—a black fabric grocery-bag looking thing—and took it to the dock with me.
“Going shopping?” Donna asked.
“Yeah. I’ll snag you some lettuce if I see any,” I said and grinned. She kept giving me a look, and I kept laughing.
“What’s so funny, ladies?” Marcus asked, when he came on the scene, and then somehow that made it worse, especially when Donna muttered something about “setting number five” and he groaned. “This is exactly what I was afraid of. You two ganging up on me,” he said, stepping up into his crane roost.
I got into the suit, still beaming, and walked confidently into the water. “Ceph?” I thought out.
“My pearl,” he said, swimming up to me. He flashed blue and then purple, and I realized I really needed to talk to him about his colors—I wanted to know what all of them meant to him. “Did you solve everything last night in a dream?”
“Ha. No, I wish.” I hadn’t dreamed at all, really. And when I had fallen asleep, it was into a deep slumber, and I woke up rested again, even though I couldn’t have had more than a few hours of sleep. “But I’m ready to try and work on it again today.”
We had a few more safe days together at least, before I was supposed to write a report for the next submersible run so that Mr. Marlow could know what the fuck I was doing with his money.
Ceph swam ahead, and then swam back. “I will carry you as soon as we reach the part where they will not see.”
“Okay,” I told him, with a blush. And then once we reached it, he picked me up again, swimming both of us off in a slightly wrong direction.
“The ship’s over there!” I told him. At least I thought it was—it was easy to get spun around in the darkness.
“I know,” he said, setting me down gently. “But I made this for you here.”
At first I couldn’t tell what it was I was looking at—but then I realized there were intricate lines and patterns on the ground.
“Is this your language?” I wondered, carefully kneeling down, to get closer.
“Why would we use language, when we have the ’qa?” he asked me, coming to be by my side. “It is part of our ceremony.” He took my hand, so that I would stand up. “It is a thing that my people have always done. You are meant to follow them.”
I scanned left and right—and realized that the lines were a path. “Oh!”
He nodded, and then disappeared. He was still in my mind, I knew he hadn’t gone far, so I walked along the path, feeling like a monk wandering a meditative maze. And the first thing I came across was a piece of coral that glowed after my light left it.
“What is this, Ceph?” I asked in wonder, picking it up.
“It is for you. To light your way in the dark.” I was touched. I put it in my bag. “Keep going,” he urged.
I followed the next steps of the path—until I came across a small kraken figurine. It was wonderfully detailed, and smooth to my tactimetal’s touch.
“Ceph!” I squealed, picking it up. “Is this you?”
I heard him laugh inside my mind. “Not exactly—but it could be. I carved it, a very long time ago. It is so you will always have me close.”
“It’s perfect,” I told him, holding it out, so that he and it were side by side. His lips were peeled wide, in a smile, revealing his fearsome bone-beak, but nothing about me was frightened of him.
“There is more,” he promised, darting off into the dark, to wait for me at my next stop.
I walked down the rest of his path, going whichever way it required, until I wound up in front of a small shiny rock—and on it was my wedding ring.
“And this is what you thought you lost, but now have found.”
I inhaled deeply. “Ceph.”
