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I have to help my father. That one goal has been the center of my universe for three and a half years now. I can’t stop this close to the finish line. I can’t even slacken my pace—not for a single step, not even for Nix.
So that night, I watch while Hedeon picks at his dinner, his eyes ringed with dark circles. He says, sleepily, to the table at large, “I’m going to bed, I feel like shit.”
“Good night,” Cara Wilk calls from across the table.
Hedeon doesn’t even look up.
I look across at Nix, catching her eye and mouthing, “One hour.”
She grins.
I spend that time in the Octagon Tower, making absolutely certain that Hedeon really went to sleep and won’t come wandering out looking for tea or another blanket.
I’m mildly concerned that Kenzo Tanaka might wake him up when he goes to bed.
“You planning to stay up studying?” I ask Kenzo, seeing the pile of books spread across the common room table.
“I’m gonna sleep right here,” Kenzo says, nodding to the blanket stolen off his bed, and the artfully arranged cushions on the sofa. “I’m the only one in this whole damn tower who hasn’t caught the flu yet, and I sure as fuck don’t want whatever strain is trying to kill Hedeon.”
Inwardly rejoicing, I head back to my room to grab my swimsuit.
Leo’s out with Anna, who apparently doesn’t share Kenzo’s fear of germs. She hasn’t stopped swapping spit with Leo for a single day, though apparently her constitution is stronger—she hasn’t caught so much as a sniffle.
Pulling on the rest of my clothes to counteract the cold, I hurry down to the Armory.
I don’t see Nix in the water yet. The shimmering, pale green surface of the pool is as smooth as a mirror.
I strip off my clothes. Then, following a strange impulse that wants nothing between my skin and the water, I pull off my suit, too, before descending the steps.
Compared to the chilly, windy night, the underground pool feels warm as blood. I walk down into the water, the pale limestone steps rough against the soles of my feet.
This pool is a hundred meters deep at least. We took scuba lessons here our first year at Kingmakers.
I’ve sunk all the way down to the bottom, the column of water as heavy as a building on top of us.
The floodlights set in the walls only illuminate so far down. They can have a blinding effect, shining upward. Anything could be beneath my feet.
At that very moment, something seizes me by the legs and yanks me down.
I’m so surprised that I don’t even close my eyes. The saltwater burns as I stare into the pale, unearthly face of Nix Moroz, her crimson hair floating around her head in a corona.
She’s completely naked too, her pale breasts with their rose-colored nipples freed of all gravity, assuming a shape of impossible symmetry. Her flesh glows pearlescent in the lights, her eyes greener than they’ve ever been.
She reaches out her hands to me, slow and sensuous under the water. She takes my face between her cool fingertips, bringing her mouth to mine.
Salt seeps into my mouth as I kiss her. Her mouth tastes all the sweeter by comparison.
Our naked bodies slide against each other as if we’re oiled down every inch of our skin. We’re floating suspended, swirling around in a slow circle in the ghostly green light.
Her wild curls float around my face like tentacles, tickling my bare arms and even my back, as if each lock has become sentient and teasing.
My lungs are burning, my heart is on fire.
And still I haven’t even considered that I might need breath.
It’s Nix who gives two strong kicks of her legs, rocketing us upward.
I gasp, the air as fiery as if I had never drawn breath before.
