“She’s cold,” I say tersely. “Outside too long.”
He measures her temperature. “Seventy units. What’s normal for a terrakin?”
“How am I supposed to know? You’re the healer!” I bark, feeling helpless. I know so little about her. I don’t even know what I did wrong to drive her away.
It must have been something from our night together, something I did poorly that I could have done better. Or maybe she’s grown tired of teaching me. She said she didn’t want to be my teacher but my partner, and I asked her for instruction many times. While she seemed happy to give it, perhaps she secretly felt something else.
“Her pulse seems sluggish. We’ll treat her as though she’s hypothermic.” Cidro tugs off Delphie’s boots and begins rubbing the hot salve we use in the pits to treat muscle strain on her feet. I want to claw his face off for touching her so intimately. He must sense the growing tension, because he kicks the tin of salve toward me. “Do her hands, Jara, and then give it to Aqen so he can apply his own.”
I push up her too-long tunic sleeve so I can treat her tiny fingers. I have not even provided her with clothing that fits. No wonder she wants to leave. After I finish with both hands, I toss the tin of salve to Aqen and empty her pockets of the rest of the stones.
My heart hardens when I see them piled beside her in pretty little rainbow-hued hills. As if it would be a simple thing for her to go. But she can’t paint me and put me in her pocket. I won’t be a souvenir, something to forget.
She won’t escape me so easily.
Chapter 24
Delphie
The last thing I remember is going upstairs with Aqen and seeing the incredible harsh beauty outside. But when I wake up, I’m warm and cozy, a heavy pile of furs on top of me and an iron arm banded around my waist. My head pounds like a bad hangover, though, and I groan when I try to move.
“What happened?” I croak.
“Drink this.” Nik holds a cup to my lips. I swallow the tepid nomo tea, which helps clear my throat.
“Is Aqen okay?”
“For now.”
Uh oh. Nik ispissed. Immediately, I switch to damage control. “Don’t be mad at him. It wasn’t his fault. I asked him to go outside. I just wanted to see what it looked like.”
“I know very well what you wanted,” he interrupts grimly. “One last look at this R’Hiza-damned planet before you left it. Before you leftme.”
“What? No!” I sit up, and my head spins, forcing me back down. I feel likeshit. “That’s not it. I wanted to see what it’s like here. Really see it, so I could find—”
He cuts me off before I can say more. “I’ve been thinking all night about what I did to drive you away.”
“You didn’t!” I protest, struggling to pull in the deep breaths I need to keep my thoughts clear. My head throbs mercilessly.What happened after I saw that extraordinary view that felt like falling in love, fireworks and all?
“IknowI didn’t,” he says, a hitch in his voice. “That’s what I realized. There was nothing I could do to keep you because you never intended to stay. You came here to find your terrakin friend. Now that there’s a clear path to her rescue, your time here is done. Congratulations, you played the game well. I did not once suspect you lied to me.”
“I didn’t,” I say, confused and panicky. “Did someone tell you I did?”
“Aqen said enough.” He grabs something from the table and flings it onto the bed. “I know what this means.”
A dozen small, colorful stones scatter silently in the furs, and then it comes back to me. The field of glittering rocks in vivid colors that made me itch to turn them into paint. I scrambled around with Aqen, filling my pockets and his with numb fingers, laughing with numb lips. He kept trying to get me to go back inside, but then I’d see another color I had to have and beg for one more minute. We must have stayed out too long.
Shit. Nik’s never going to let me go outside again.
“They don’t mean what you think,” I tell Nik, realizing where his mind went when he saw the stones. He’s thinking of the story I told about making paint when I leave places behind.
But there are other reasons I make paint.
I didn’t have a chance to tell him about how one of my group therapy classes involves creating murals using paint that my clients create themselves. My first thought when I saw all those rocks was that it might be healing for his apprentices to decorate the newly repaired tunnels. And I didn’t tell him that I treasure the memory of him showing his joy against the blue tile, so much so that it gave me the wild idea to recreate the experience for him with all the other emotions by painting walls in every color.
Desperately, I try to explain, even though my head hurts so much, it’s making me feel queasy. “I got them for you. So I could paint sections of passageway, and you could show your feelings with your camouflage, like in the shower.”
He scoffs, an ugly sound. “It’s easier to spot your lies now. Which is it, terrakin? Did you go outside just to look at the sights, or did you go out to gather stones to paint the walls? It can’t be both.”
