Mercury’s cheeks went a bright pink. “I’m sure they were just stories, things you tell children. You probably think I’m silly.”
“No, I think you were abused.” Kami frowned deeply. “And also, it’s really cool, by the way, that you can just slide—isn’t it what you called it?”
Mercury nodded, gently rocking Melinda side to side.
“So how does it work?”
Mercury shrugged, lips twisting. “I have to have someone else. I can’t do it by myself. I need to have someone who shows me where we’re going. That’s one of the reasons that it was so nice with Talon—he just knew where to go, so when I said‘home’, he had an idea of where that was here, and so we came together. I was touching him…”
Talon nodded and petted his hailee’s spine, trying to relax the tense muscles. Kami needed to ease up.
“So if you were touching me right now and I said I wanted to go to California, we could go?”
Mercury’s frown deepened. “It would have to be somewhere you knew, a heart place, like that. But if you knew that you wanted to go, then yes, we could go, but I would be very tired and we’d have to wait for a while before it happened again.”
Kami leaned in, eyes flashing. “How long?”
Mercury leaned back, shielding the baby. “I don’t know! I’ve only done it a few times on purpose. Like twice.”
“Kami, that’s enough. We’re making friends, we’re not having an interrogation.”
Kami sat back, relaxing. “Sure. Sorry. I’m desperately curious sometimes.”
“You can also be dogged and single-minded.” Talon growled the words at his best friend, who just stuck out his tongue.
Which made his hailee giggle again.
Talon loved that sound already. It was one of his favorites.
Kami rolled his eyes. “So, what are you most excited about seeing here first?”
Mercury just sort of shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t know what there is to see. I’ve been in the tower for a long time. Talon said we could have movies. I’d like to try movies again.”
“Oh, that’s fabulous! I also like movies.” Kami winked at him as if to say, ‘see, I’m trying’. “We’re big on movies, books, and games. They play a lot of games around here.”
Mercury tilted his head. “Games like?”
“Cards, board games, video games.”
Mercury’s eyes lit up. “I used to play cards a lot and dominoes before the tower.”
“What did you do?”
“I told myself stories, I sang, I watched the snow and the water. I watched the water a lot.”
“Wow.” Kami was about to let loose with a terrifically mean thing, he could tell, so Talon cut him off.
“Movies. I bet you would like something fun, like theMummy.” He loved the nineties version. It was such a romp.
“I like fun. I used to read about mummies all the time, before I was sent away.” Mercury glanced at Kami.He doesn’t really like me very much, does he? I’m sorry. I swear I’m not trying to be someone that someone else wouldn’t like. I promise.
Nonsense. He’s just Kami. He pushes and pushes. You can push back, but maybe today isn’t the right day to do that.
Today isn’t the right day to do that.Mercury carefully handed Talon little Miranda. “I’m sorry, I don’t feel very well. Is it all right if I go back to bed?”
“Yes, it is.”
Mercury wandered off, still drowning in a borrowed robe.
