“No!” she said fiercely, then quieted. “Sometimes you can’t make up your mind about things, then suddenly youknowwhat you want.” She looked hard into his eyes. “This—” She waved her hand to mean the whole planet. “This isn’t something I want to try to solve alone. That’s what you and I did with Valona and we failed. Because of us, Urah and Olina are free to cause more destruction.” She paused. “I want us tohelpwith whatever Tanek and Vian and all of them are doing. I don’t want you and me to ever again think we’re alone in this fight.” She took a breath. “And I want a home and a family. I want to live at your destroyed Homestead. I want your father and Kaley to be there as we rebuild the place. And I want my friend Hale there. I miss her very much.”
She looked at him with great intensity. “What Davro said about my body... I want a child.”
Mekos raised an eyebrow. “You meannow?”
“Yes.Thischild. Don’t ask me to explain it butthischild showed himself to me through your uncle.” She paused. “After seeing this place and how much control these people have over every aspect of us, I don’t want to think of the future. I want all the happiness I can get right now. This minute. No more postponement!” Her voice was rising.
Mekos was smiling at her, listening.
She smiled back at him. “I want our child to learn about swans, like your family knows. Our son will be of the Order of Swans.”
“With you as his mother, we’ll make it the Order of Royal Swans.”
Aradella raised her eyebrows. “Do you know how to do it? I mean, to make a baby?”
He smiled. “Yes. Papá has only done it once, to make me, but he said it’s a pleasure like no other. For both of us.” He paused. “You have no doubts?”
“I’ve never been more sure about anything in my life. What about you?”
“No doubts whatever.” He opened his arms to her.
26
Aradella heard a noise but she didn’t want to respond to it. After the energetic acrobatics of last night, she just wanted to sleep. She vaguely remembered that at daylight, Mekos had left. He’d kissed her lingeringly and said that Davro was offering to give him a tour of the island.
“He says I won’t need the mask. Do you mind?”
Aradella was so sleepy all she could do was give a single shake to her head.
Chuckling, he kissed her again, then did his silent-fox act and left the room.
She went back to sleep but now something was trying to wake her up. “No,” she mumbled. “Let me sleep.”
She heard a crash of something hitting the floor but she buried her face under the covers.
“I will stamp on your eyeballs if you don’t wake up.”
It was Ian’s voice. For someone so little, he could certainly be loud. “Go away.” To her great annoyance, the little man slid under the covers and set his body to vibrating. It was like being in the midst of a beehive. “Stop it!” She made a grab at him but didn’t come close to catching him.
“Olina and Urah are here.”
He was so loud, Aradella winced. Reluctantly, she opened her eyes. Ian was almost standing on her nose. She drew back and flung the cover off her head. “What?!” she demanded.
He flew back but not too far away. “Olina and Urah are here on this island.”
Aradella blinked a few times. “Tell Mekos and his uncle that they have to—”
“You think I didn’t go to them first?” he shot back. “They’re somewhere secret, spying no doubt, and they’ve disabled their chips.”
Aradella was fully awake. “Where are they?”
“In a beauty salon.”
“A what?” She sat up.
“Like the Beauty Girls on Pithan have, only a bigger shop. Urah looked twenty years younger.”
Aradella’s head whirled. “Those farken sound waves! If they can revive dead earthlings, I’m sure they can de-age some old witch.” She grit her teeth. “And for what purpose? So these fark-wads can send the witch back to Pithan to cause more havoc to give these lazy creeps more feelies?”
