“Fair point.” He acknowledged his uselessness in this instance with a nod. “I’ll stay out of your way.”
Rasker left Holly to the water system and she took in her surroundings. Tanks the size of small rooms rose up from the floor to the curved ceiling, connected by a dense grid of pipesand tubes and pressure valves. It was noisy here, but most large, working systems were. Noises were a good way of learning if a system had a problem…if you knew what it sounded like when it was working properly. Which Holly didn’t. She listened to the low, constant hum and the occasional tick of something contracting or expanding. Well, she’d have to dig around and find out what was going on the hard way. Holly set down her bucket and got to work.
It took a while. She moved slowly through the grid, tracing each line, building the map in her head. Most of the pipes and tubes were in reasonable condition. Old, and some of them overdue for replacement, but functioning. She followed the line that fed rain to the square until she found the clog. The buildup had been nobody’s fault. Just time.
She shut off the valve, opened up the tube, and used a tool from the bucket until the blockage broke free and the line cleared. After closing it up and reopening the valve, the difference was immediate. A smooth flow of water moved through the tube.
She stood up and stretched her back, satisfied that she’d been able to make this fix without having to bother Sam about it. She’dhopedto fix the fountain while she was down here, but she could not find those connections anywhere. It was probably for the best that she stopped with one project, however, because this one had taken longer than she’d thought. She gathered her tools, picked up the bucket, and went back through the archway into the pool chamber.
The water was no longer still.
Twenty-Seven
Rasker moved through the water the way birds moved through air: completely at home, with control, grace and raw, effortless strength. He had stripped down to shorts he had apparently been wearing beneath his pants, and the single word that came and stayed in Holly’s mind at watching him flow with the water was: beautiful.
He had never looked more alien to her, either. His skin had deepened to a richer blue in the water, the kind of color she had only ever seen at the very bottom of a clear sea. His gills showed plainly at the sides of his neck, and when he lifted his hands to adjust course, she could see webbing that must fold down between his fingers in dry air. He propelled himself the length of one pool in a long, smooth glide, then curved upward and crested the divide into the next with pure ease.
His face, when she caught a glimpse of it, was unguarded. Blissful.
She set the bucket down and watched him as he moved from pool to pool, and she stood on the walkway above, wondering if she had intruded on something private, even though she was the one who had brought him here.
Then he surfaced near the edge of the nearest pool and found her with his gaze.
He was not embarrassed. Neither, somehow, was she.
He swam to the edge directly below her and lifted his face to look at her. Up close, with the water beading on his skin, gills still working, and his eyes gleaming with what looked like an extra clear protective layer, he looked more aquatic than she had ever seen him. Like the person she’d picked up in the hotel was a very convincing translation, butthiswas the original text.
“You’ve got to come in here,” he said.
“I’m not really a swimmer.”
“You were right about this water. It’s perfect.” He laid his hand flat on the surface, watching it. “Come on, Holly. Your skin will love it.”
She could see every line and color change in the stone below the surface, and this was a little too deep for her liking. “I haven’t swum since I was small,” she said.
“Then it’s been too long.”
“Oh, fine.” She told herself she was doing it because she was sweaty and hot, and needed a rinse off anyway. She told herself that she needed to establish his trust, to keep the ease between them, because she was gathering information. But the real reason? She wanted to feel just a sliver of whateverhewas feeling swimming through these pools.
She pulled off her boots and set them aside, stripped off her pullover and climbed down to the pool’s edge in her shorts and tank top. The stone was warm under her feet.
The water was warm, but ithadbeen a long time, and the feeling of being enclosed in it startled her. She clutched the rock edge and made a small, involuntary sound.
“Okay?” he asked.
“Yes.” A lie. “Fine.”
It was not fine. Every instinct told her the floor was gone and she was going to sink to the bottom. In her experience, a loss of gravity wasn’t a good thing.
Then his arm came around her waist, and the instincts quieted.
“Relax,” he said, behind her ear. “I won’t let you drown. I promise.”
She released the side.
He was different in the water, where he moved with a casual authority that he didn’t think about. She felt him shift his weight, felt the water reorganize around them both, and then they were moving. She did not have to do anything. She did not have to kick or reach or tilt her head. He carried them through the pool as if her weight was just a part of him, and the water moved around her the way he had described it: slow and close and silken. It sprayed on her face and she tasted salt and stone.
She extended her arms and the water moved over them. His hands were around her waist, holding her securely against his chest. The light under the surface refracted in shifting patterns on the stone walls. She could see her own hands out ahead of her and it felt for a brief and amazing moment like she was flying. Time did strange things for a while, pausing while she let the mineral-rich water slide over her skin along with the powerful angles of the man she’d put her complete trust in. He wouldn’t let her go. She knew this in her bones.
