The rain system ran its weekly cycle, and the gentle shower came down in soft, even sheets across the entire station. It caught the lamppost light and turned the air silver. The stone paths darkened. The plants in the square, which had struggled and drooped for years under inadequate water, now glistened and stretched out from the moisture. In the gardens beyond, she knew the flowers were doing the same. By morning, everything would be in bloom. The timing was either very lucky or very deliberate; she had asked Sam to adjust the rain cycle to fall the night before the festival, and Sam had done it without comment.
Holly stood in the middle of the square and tilted her face up. The rain was warm. It smelled of minerals and clean stone and the faintest trace of green.
Arms wrapped around her from behind.
She didn’t startle. She knew the weight of him by now, the particular way he held his breath for half a second before contact, as if giving her time to step away. She didn’t step away.She leaned back against his chest and felt the rain on her face and his warmth at her back and the quiet, absurd perfection of standing in a broken square on a failing moon at two in the morning, soaking wet, and feeling like she was exactly where she was supposed to be.
Rasker pressed his lips to the side of her neck, just below her ear. The rain had changed the color of his skin from a light blue to a darker hue, and she could hear the faint movement of his gills adjusting to the moisture. He was more himself in the rain, just as he had been more himself in the pools.
“You’re shivering,” he murmured against her neck. “Are you cold?”
Her lips curved. “No.”
“Ah.” His arms tightened around her.
She smiled and settled deeper against him. The square was quiet except for the tap of rain on stone and the drip of water from the roofs. The Emporium’s window display glowed softly. Harry’s shop was dark.
“Cody cornered me today,” Holly said, after a while.
She felt Rasker’s chest shift behind her. “About the music?”
“Yes. He wants to perform at the festival. Play his… I’m not even sure what the instrument is. Some kind of stringed thing he apparently built himself.”
“I heard.” Rasker’s voice was carefully neutral. “Harry mentioned it. He also mentioned that he and Alyce both told Cody not to.”
“And Mish,” Holly added. “And Sam, in his way, which was to look at Cody and walk away.”
“That tracks.”
“Cody ignored all of them. He told me the festival needs ‘live energy’ and that recordings are ‘dead sound.’” Holly sighed. “I said I’d think about it.”
“And?”
“And I don’t want to fight with him about it the night before the event. He can play for a little while. If it’s terrible, Harry’s recordings will be standing by.”
Rasker was quiet for a moment. The rain shifted direction slightly, pushed by the dome’s air circulation, and Holly felt droplets run down the side of her neck.
“I still don’t trust him,” Rasker said.
“I know.” Holly watched the water collect in the grooves of the stonework, tiny rivers running toward the fountain. “I kept hoping he’ll just leave, like he said he would. Find somewhere else to go. But he’s still here, and he’s still eating my food and sleeping who knows where, and contributing nothing.”
“You’ll have to give him a deadline.”
“I know that, too.” She exhaled. “After the festival. One more thing to deal with after the festival.”
She felt him nod against her hair.
Her gaze settled on the fountain. It sat in the center of the square, rain streaming down its curved stone sides, pooling in its basin. Still broken. Still silent. She had traced the water lines through the underground system and couldn’t find the fountain’s connection to the main supply. The mechanics of it were hidden somewhere inside the structure itself, and she’d need to take the thing apart to find them. She’d been itching to do it for weeks, but there had always been a task that claimed higher priority.
After the festival, she told herself. She would take the fountain apart, piece by piece, and figure out what was keeping it from working. She would fix it, because she was an engineer and that was what she did, and because a working fountain in the center of the square would be the kind of detail that made people want to stay.
And after the festival, she would sit down with Rasker and have the conversation they had been circling for weeks. Aboutwhatthiswas. About what happened when his client expected an answer and she couldn’t give him one that served them both. Was there a version of reality where he didn’t leave and she didn’t sell, and they figured out the rest together?
She hoped the fountain would be easier to figure out.
“We should go in,” she said. “Big day tomorrow.”
“It is.” He didn’t let go.
