“You left out the part about you trying to buy my family’s space station,” she said, taking in every little twitch. Every glance.
“Ididmention that, actually.” He raised his brows. “That’s the complicated part, you see.”
“Ah, yes.” Holly took in a deep, fortifying breath. “She doesn’t care that I’m human?” Because that was another complicated part. Nakrians were known to be snobbish with nonaquatic species, and they reserved harsh judgment for humans, who had treated their own oceans poorly for many hundreds of years.
“She did not care that you’re human.” He met her gaze with a hint of amusement. “She asked if you like to swim, though.”
Holly’s thoughts returned to their cavern pool frolic and heat rose to her cheeks. Still, she twirled her fork and lifted one shoulder. “I like it well enough with you.”
One corner of his mouth curved. “That’s what I told her.” Before she could ask what,exactly, he told his mother about the two of them, he spooned the last thing onto her plate and held up a hand. “Number one: my mother does not know the details about our relationship. And number two: eat the braisedsquglitbefore it gets cold.”
Holly shut her mouth, pushed away thoughts of Rasker’s mother, and tasted the braisedsquglitfirst. The broth was rich and slightly briny, and had a delicate sweetness that reminded her of mussels, but with a depth she couldn’t place. The taste was warm and clean. It settled on her tongue and made her want more.
“Oh,” she said.
“Yeah,” he said, watching her. “It’s good, isn’t it?”
She tried everything. The charred fish with its bright citrus. A salad of crisp, unfamiliar greens tossed with a nutty sauce. Roasted vegetables in a glaze that was simultaneously sweet and hot. A flatbread that tore in soft strips and tasted faintly ofsmoke. She ate more than she had in weeks, possibly months, and Bean gave up begging to lie down in a dejected sploot on the floor.
The conversation moved between light and serious, but it was always interesting. Holly figured that’s what happened when people stopped circling each other and decided to sit down and stay.
He told her more about Nakri. The coastal city he’d grown up in with a single mother after his father left, where the buildings were carved from a pale stone that changed color with the tides. The smell of salt on everything. The markets that ran along the waterfront and stayed open through the night, lit by strings of bioluminescent lanterns that the fishermen’s children made from the bladders of deep-water creatures. He described the sound of the harbor at dawn, when the fishing boats went out and the water was so still you could see straight to the bottom, and Holly thought of the underground pools and the look on his face when he’d been swimming through them. That unguarded bliss.
She told him about her parents. About her father’s pottery and how his hands were always making something, and how her mother chose each word with such precision that conversations with her sometimes felt like watching someone assemble a clock. She told him what it was like growing up on the edge of a forest, with wolves at the windows and owls in the trees and a quiet that breathed if you were still long enough to notice. She told him that her father once chased a fox out of the kitchen with a broom and her mother had calmly continued eating her breakfast.
Rasker smiled at that. A real smile, not the practiced curve she’d gotten used to from him. “They sound extraordinary.”
“They are.” Holly looked down at her plate and realized it was nearly empty. “They’re the reason I didn’t turn into a completedrone at Sol-Arc. Every time I went home, they reminded me who I was.” She paused. “I didn’t go home enough.”
“Most people don’t.”
She glanced at him. “Do you?”
“I try to get there a few times a year.” He turned his glass slowly on the table. “When I’m there, I can feel the pull of it. The water. The air. But I’ve been on land for so long that my body forgets that solid ground isn’t my only natural habitat.”
Holly understood and nodded. She’d felt off balance when she’d first arrived at Moone’s Landing. Her body and mind knew the gravity and patterns of Nova, but this place reminded her more of home than the place where she’d lived for twelve years. Now, she knew the difference between living somewhere and belonging somewhere, and she couldn’t say shelikedknowing that she’d been repeating patterns that didn’t mesh with what she actually wanted.
“You’ll remember,” she said. “And the pools are there for you anytime.”
He looked at her, and for a moment, neither of them spoke. Bean let out a long sigh through his nose, and settled his chin on Holly’s shoe.
They cleared the plates together. Or, rather, Holly tried to help and Rasker waved her off and did it himself, which she protested until he poured her another glass oftrinelingwine. They chatted and shared and enjoyed each other’s company beside the window that looked out over the square.
The rain system was dropping a soft mist that caught the light of the lampposts and turned the stone paths silver. Holly could see the fountain, still broken, and the darkened storefronts, and the soft glow of Harry’s mushroom shop at the far end. It was quiet out there. Peaceful, as Moone’s Landing could be when it wasn’t falling apart.
“I want to show you something,” Rasker said.
Thirty
The shift in his tone was subtle, but she heard it. He had moved from the table to the dresser and was pulling up a display on his personal screen. His expression had changed, too. It became more guarded. More careful.
Holly crossed the room and stood beside him.
On the screen was a series of documents. Reports, financial records, navigation logs. He had organized them into a timeline, and Holly could see three locations marked along it. Three way stations, spread across different systems, none of them familiar to her.
“I’ve been running a search on Complete Respite,” he said. “Quietly. On my own time.”
Holly looked at the screen. Her pulse quickened.
