Page 506 of Reign

His weight sends another wave rolling beneath us, lifting me toward him. I laugh and grab his arm before I can slide into his side.

“You did that on purpose.”

“I barely moved.”

“You displaced half the water.”

“That’s how water works.”

“You’re enormous.”

“I’m aware.”

He reaches toward the cushioned platform beside the mattress and presses his thumb against a small panel concealed within it.

The overhead lights begin to dim. My body tightens automatically. The amber light around the floor remains.

“Never completely dark,” he says.

Three quiet words.

He remembered.

“I can turn everything off whenever you want,” he continues. “This controls the light, sound, and images. You can use them together or separately.”

He places a small remote in my hand and closes my fingers around it.

“If it becomes too much, press this.”

“What’s going to become too much?”

Luciano looks at me for another second.

Then he touches the panel again.

The ceiling changes.

Blue spreads slowly across the pale surface above us, deepening from the soft turquoise of shallow water into something richer. Light ripples through it in long, wavering bands.

My breath catches.

It looks as though we are lying beneath the surface of a pool.

Sunlight moves above us. Every golden line bends and trembles as invisible water carries it across the ceiling. The walls begin reflecting the same muted blue until the entire room seems submerged.

A low rush of sound fills the space.

Water.

The sound is softer than that, muffled as though I am hearing it from below the surface. It comes from everywhere at once, surrounding me without revealing a single speaker.

The mattress shifts beneath my body in a slow, gentle wave.

I forget how to breathe.

He remembered what I told him about Mamma.

How she would hold both of my hands under water. Her hair would float around her face while sunlight moved across her skin and everything beyond the pool disappeared. Voices softened. Colors blurred. My mind stopped collecting every detail long enough for me to relax.