“I love you,” he said quietly. “And I love you when you’re passionate and when you’re working hard, and taking care of this town you love so much. But I also love it when you get the rest you deserve.”
“All right. All right, you win. I will stay here and be an unproductive lump while you chase an endangered snake through the Clearwater City Hall's ductwork.”
Luca beamed at her, eyes as bright as stars, and she felt as if she had won something when he leaned in to plant a kiss at the corner of her mouth.
“Thank you,” he whispered, and something about the way he said it made her sigh softly.
As a matter of fact, she was a little at a loss when she went back to her office. She wasn't used to simply not working, especially when she was at the place where work happened, and twice she had to stop herself from opening her planner. Instead she went after her tablet, which was four years old but still capable of streaming video, and she discovered that the last thing she had been watching was a long harem drama set in ancient China.
“Oh this one was ridiculous,” she said out loud, and she started to take it off her recently viewed list before she remembered that where she had left off, the heroine had beenpoisoned by her rival at court. It seemed a bit of a waste not to find out where that had gone, and she settled on the couch to watch an episode, blinking when Luca came back in.
“Oh, did you forget something?”
He grinned at her.
“I've been out for an hour.”
“What? Oh, wow, you have. Sorry, it's just that the king's chief advisor was revealed to be a necromancer.”
“I know how that goes.”
The second time he came back for a water break, it turned out that the chief advisor had actually been framed for necromancy, and that the rival was the real evil genius behind the failed coup.
The third time, the heroine was revealed to be the reincarnation of her rival's husband from another lifetime, and Luca listened intently as Macy explained it all to him.
“So if she's the reincarnation of her rival's husband, but she and the king are soulmates every lifetime—”
“—then the king must have been the army captain from the last life, yes!”
By then Luca needed a break from cerastes-stalking, so they ended up on the couch, the tablet balanced on Luca's knees as the drama took them through a rising tide of tension, revelation and climax in the space of around twenty-five minutes.
As the episode credits rolled over the slow mournful beats of a bass drum, Luca looked at her slightly awed.
“How many episodes of this are there?”
“It looks like about fifty-five, not including the movie and the drama CDs.”
“And which episode was that?”
“Um, twelve. That was episode twelve.”
“Outstanding,” Luca said in tones of deepest respect. “If you wouldn't mind watching it again with me, I'm really curious to see how the thing with the ghost in the archives plays out, but I should probably get back to work.”
“Do you have to?” Macy asked plaintively, but she knew he did.
“The sooner I find our guy, the sooner we can spend all our time watchingThe Splendor of Love in Water and Fire.”
She raised an eyebrow at him.
“Is that all we're going to be doing?”
“We can do many things,” he said, leaning in to give her a deeper kiss. It was light but thorough, and she sighed as he stood up.
“I want to do many things,” she said plaintively, making him laugh.
He started to respond, but then his head snapped up, to the ceiling at first, she thought, but then she realized he was staring across the room toward the grated vent set in the wall over her desk. Before she could get properly turned around, Luca was already in motion, and she caught the glimpse of a pointed tail, the gleam of scales in the light of her lamp.
Luca was across the room in a heartbeat, jumping up with an astonishing lightness onto the top of her filing cabinet to reach the vent.
