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“I am. You have many flaws,” he said, with a tease, and I playfully pushed against him, right before his arm tucked me in harder to his chest. “I love you too, my pearl. I just hate that you are leaving. I am not ready to give you up yet.”
I reached up to put a hand on his chin. “Too bad I never made you a carving of my breeding hole to remember me by,” I said, and he laughed, hard.
“I am the luckiest kraken there ever was,” he said, setting me to my feet right front of the gantry, so that he could carefully float in the lifeboat with its precious cargo.
chapter 64
CEPHARIUS
“>” The ship’s excitement was deafening.
“Yes. But at great cost,” I said—and the ship seemed to ignore this.
“>”
I frowned, but I supposed it had several hundred lives on its mind, while I only had the one, my singular and precious Elle of the Air, who would run out of breath shortly, and die down here.
I worked the latches of the lifeboat’s side with my tentacles, and wound up mostly prying the thing open, releasing the battery and the alien child at the same time, along with two corpses.
The child turned into a kraken again, facing me, and then squirted away.
“>” the ship commanded, and I waved Elle back. Anything she could do to make her air levels last longer would be worthwhile. I grabbed the battery, and surged forward, hoping that I could quickly drop off the thing and get back to her.
It opened a hole in one wall, and I slid the battery into it, only for it to disappear.
“Is that . . . it?” I asked, waiting for something.
“>” the ship announced. “>”
I quickly swam back to be by Elle’s side outside. “Is it done?” she asked me.
“I think so,” I said, taking her hand, as a beam of light strong enough to cut through the dark shot up from the top of the ship into the sea overhead.
“What?” Elle asked, sensing my distraction.
“Look,” I told her, picking her up, so her helmet was close to my head, as I shared my vision with her. She couldn’t see it, but I could.
“Oh, Ceph—it’s lovely.”
And then I felt a distant thrumming on the ’qa.
Elle felt it too. “Cepharius—what is that?” she asked, turning toward me and putting a hand to her chest.
“It cannot be,” I whispered to her—and yet it was.
Voice after voice, familiar from old times, were nearing, and I heard my own name called from the inky black. “Cepharius!”
It was my brother calling—and he’d brought our entire people.
“CEPHARIUS!” he shouted even louder, which made Elle jump.
“Who was that?” she asked, looking at me with wide surprised eyes.
“That,” I answered her slowly, “is my family.”
chapter 65
ELLE
