“Why me?”he asked Fian when they were back at the electronics store to get the demon a phone of his own.
Fian turned to him.“I’m not sure it has anything to do with you.Do you remember what I said about the fish in the net and not struggling?”
Kai nodded.
Fian went on.“The fish was just there, and then some human dropped a net.That’s not the fish’s fault.And even if the fish really wants to know, there is no good answer the fisherman can give him.”
Kai nodded again.“You’re good at this.”
“Fishing metaphors?”
Kai chuckled.“Listening.”
“Thank you.Should we get dinner?”
Kai nodded.“Takeout.Would it be okay if I ate alone in my room?I just want some time to myself.”He tapped the phone Fian had almost decided on.“And I’ll be able to call you.”
“We can even videocall.And I can meet you when you fall asleep?Show you around the Carnival?”
“I’d love that.”
Fian looked like a lost puppy with tentacles when he waved goodbye to Kai from the back of the sedan that would drop him at the ocean so he could go home from there.
Kai already missed the way his demon had been able to hold him, but he needed this time.He just needed time.
On the way to his room, a door in the same hallway opened, and Maggie came out, her eyes red-rimmed.
“Kai.”
He stopped in his tracks.“Maggie.Hi.I saw you…I saw you back in Salt Harbor.”
“Yeah.”Her voice drifted away, and her eyes looked as if they were seeing the past.
“We’ll just have to forget it, you know?I don’t know how it is for you, but I don’t remember all of it.Some, but not all.And I just want to forget about it.”
She looked at him, smiled.“I remember when Nick brought you into town.You have to understand, I couldn’t help.I’d tried that before, and in the years since, they made sure I couldn’t.But I remember you.I thought there was still a spark in your eyes.”
“I…don’t know about that.”Fian had made sure there was enough food in the paper bag in his arms, but Kai didn’t know if he could share it, if he could sit down with Maggie and have dinner together.
“I know.I was there.I saw, and you’re still here.They have food downstairs for all of us, but you don’t want to come, huh?”She looked at his bag.
“Maybe not tonight.”
Maggie nodded.“Another night then.If forgetting doesn’t work, you know we’re here too.”
Kai watched her walk toward the stairs.He stood there for a long while even after she was gone, thinking and not thinking, feeling and not feeling.
When he was in his room, he called Fian, and they talked through the night.In the early hours of the morning, Kai finally fell asleep.
“Hey,” said Fian in his cecaelia form, the ocean dark and blue around him.
“Hey.”
Kai swam toward the demon who had found him and woken him up from the worst of his nightmares.Warm tentacles welcomed him and held him close, and after all the talking they had done, they didn’t need to speak another word between them.
In the depths of a dream ocean where demons roamed, tentacles held Kai safely, and Kai knew that he was anchored in Fian’s many arms, no matter what vicious current tried pulling him out and away.
26
