Augustus stepped backward, out of the water. Away from her scent. Her warmth.
He couldn’t feel his heart.
It must still be in her hands.
Shefollowed him step for step. “Come with me.”
She was leaving, but pleading for him to go? “Selene, even if I were allowed to return to Perean, my dad needs us here.”
“I didn’t say I was going back to Perean. Not yet, anyway.” Her gaze lowered. “And I know you think you need to stay here for your dad... I would never dream of asking you to walk away from him right now. But?—”
Her eyes lifted, and tears shone in them. “But, I love you and I’m selfish.”
“Then I’m selfish, too, because I’m going to ask you for three months.”
Selene flinched as if slapped, then said, “I know it’s not fair.”
“Fair would be five months.”
He’d take one month. All he needed was enough time to come up with a plan that suited themboth.
“There’s something I have to see through, Augustus, and time isn’t something I have to give. The babies will be born soon?—”
“Babies?” A jolt shot through his heart. “Are you?—?”
“No,” she rushed to say, hands up, eyes wide. “I’m not— No.” She swallowed. “I can’t explain it, and that’s why I have to go. There are others out there who can help me.”
Suddenly, he was back on that dream beach facing his mother. “You and Selene have more to learn and accomplish before the end.”
But why now? They had years—decades—of life ahead of them. They’d survived that damned prophecy. They made it to their twenty-first year. Why the rush all of a sudden?
“I don’t understand why you have to go now,” he said. “Give me a few months. I’ll take you wherever you want.”
Augustus dug into his pocket and withdrew the sketch he had commissioned in preparation for tonight. He couldn’t give her the final product for months still, but he hada plan.
“Here.” He filled her hand with the pencil drawing on thin vellum. “Our ship. Ourhome.”
Selene stared at the drawing and read the name at the top. “TheKomera.”
“And I already know what you’re thinking, but I don’t want to take her into battle. I want to fill the decks with our family, Selene. Kids and friends and Little Gus. Turos, too, if he wants.”
“Augustus.”
“We’llbe real merchants, and I’m not just saying that this time. I’m serious?—”
“August—”
“They’ve already started building her. If you could?—”
Her tears brought him to a halt, and pain lanced through his chest.
She met his eyes. “We can’t keep circling each other like this. You waiting for me to be ready, me waiting for you… It isn’t fair to either of us.”
“I’m not asking for fair. I’m asking for time, Selene. Please.”
She drew in a deep breath and blinked the tears from her eyes. “By the time I come back, Mettius will be on his feet again. The ship will be ready, and we’ll figure out our next steps.”
Augustus understood the argument, but that didn’t erase the desperation to lock her in a room until she came to her senses.
