My heart breaks for them. No wonder they’re so intent on finding Milla. The three of them were forged in the fires together.
“You make it sound so bad, Princess.” Ian gives me the rakish grin that never quite reaches his eyes. “Twelve-year-olds in charge of their own destiny is the stuff child fantasies are made out of.”
Yeah, until they’re actually on their own.
Instead of saying that, I reach under the table and squeeze Ian’s knee in sympathy. He jumps a little, and when I look across the table it’s to find Max watching me with wide eyes.
I smile at him, and he shakes his head, but not before I see his lips curve in a tiny grin.
“What about you?” I ask Gage, determined to shift the focus off Ian and Max and onto someone else. “What would you be doing if you weren’t here?”
“I’d probably have gone down with the Caelestis, so—concussion or not—this is looking pretty good to me right now.” He shrugs.
“We’d be getting ready for the festival of the Light,” Rain volunteers, and I shoot her a grateful look. “It’s my favorite festival.”
Merrick smiles briefly. “Mine too.”
“What about you, Kali?” Gage asks as he eats the last of his casserole. “What would you be doing right now back at the palace?”
“Trying to convince my mother to let me leave the palace, probably.”
Beckett looks confused. “What does that mean? You didn’t want to live there anymore?”
I laugh. “Oh, that definitely wasn’t a choice I could make. I just meant getting off the palace grounds. My mom’s not exactly big on letting me roam free.”
“Yeah, but you were on the Caelestis,” Gage says. “That’s pretty far afield from the royal palace.”
“It is,” I agree. “A four-hour shuttle ride. The first time I left the palace. My first and, I’m fairly certain, last royal duty, considering how spectacularly it failed.”
“That’s one way to put it,” Max says with a laugh. “A spectacular failure.”
“It was spectacular,” Rain agrees, and she’s giggling, too.
It doesn’t take long for everyone else to join in. We’ve all been looking at the Caelestis’s explosion from our own points of view, and it’s kind of nice to step outside that. To look at what it means to everyone else. So much so that I don’t even mind that they’re all laughing at me right now. Because I am, too, and after the last few weeks of terror and confusion, it feels really, really good.
At least until I glance over at Ian and realize he’s staring at me with an intensity that seems to cut right through the amusement to the scared, confused heart of me.
Chapter 58
Ian
I can’t stop staring at Kali. Can’t stop brushing my arm up against hers or handing her something just to feel the warmth of her fingers as they slide over my own.
She’s alive. After spending the last few weeks convincing myself that I didn’t give a shit—that I couldn’t give a shit—she went and snuck under my defenses anyway.
And now I don’t want to let her out of my sight.
Tomorrow, things will go back to normal. I’ll put the distance between us that so clearly needs to be there. But don’t ask me to do it tonight, because I won’t. I can’t.
I reach for the gerjgin bottle and pour myself a second glass as everyone else around me gets drunker and drunker. Especially Max. He was as terrified as I was today, and he’s handling it about as badly as I am. Differently, mind you, but equally as bad.
It’s another hour before people start passing out on the table—nice one, Max and Merrick—or heading off to their cabins to do the same, until Kali, Gage, and I are the last two conscious people on board.
“You two can head to bed,” she says as she carries an armful of dishes to the sink. “I’m just going to wash these before I go to sleep.”
Gage glances across the table, brows raised. I get what he’s asking, and I appreciate it, though I’m not sure how tonight is going to end. I give a little affirmative shrug anyway, because whatever happens, I want to spend some time alone with Kali, even if it’s just to assure myself she’s all right.
“I think I’m going to head up to the bridge,” Gage says a little too loudly. “There are a few things I want to check on.”
“Okay, well, let us know if your head starts to hurt again,” Kali tells him with a warm smile. “Or if you need any help.”
He smiles back, a little charmed by her, I think—which I get, even though I don’t want to—and he says, “I think I’ve got it, but thanks.”
He grabs another glass of water—no drinking after a concussion—and heads out.
I wait until the door closes behind him before telling Kali, “You really don’t have to wash all the dishes. It’s Merrick’s night on the rotation.”
“Merrick’s drunk off his ass, in case you didn’t notice,” she says. “And it’s not fair to leave Rain with these in the morning, when her rotation starts. Besides, I don’t mind. Doing dishes relaxes me.”
“I never imagined I’d hear you say that,” I tell her as I start gathering what’s left of the plates and glasses, being careful not to bump Max and Merrick, who are passed out on separate ends of the long table.
“Me neither,” she says with a giggle. “But a lot has changed in the last few weeks.”
“You can say that again.” I scrape the last of the food scraps into the disposal chute.
“Oh, I can get those!” she says. “It’ll only take me a few minutes. Go on to bed.”
I lift a brow. “Are you trying to get rid of me, Princess?”
“Of course not.” Her cheeks flush that dusky rose color I like so much. “I just figured you were probably tired.”
“I think I can handle scraping a few plates.”
Kali looks like she wants to argue some more, but in the end she just shrugs in a suit-yourself kind of way.
I resist the urge to tell her I always do.
We work in silence as we set the galley to rights. It only takes about ten minutes, and when it’s done, we leave Max and Merrick to their drunken snores and head down the hallway toward the cabins.
We get to Kali’s cabin first, and I know I should keep walking. I even tell myself to keep walking. But somehow my feet stay exactly where they are. Right in front of her door.
“Are you tired?” she asks, hesitant in a way I’m not used to from her. She’s been pulling the princess act on me from the very beginning, and I admit, it used to get my back up, but now, seeing her suddenly shy and uncertain, I have to admit that I much prefer her when she’s bossing me around.
“I don’t have to be,” I answer.
She gives me a funny look. “I don’t know what that means.”
“It means if you want a tour of my room, I’d love to give it to you.”
Her eyes go wide, and I wonder if I was a little too forward. But that’s who I am, and it seems pretty absurd to try to change it now. Besides, when it comes to this one thing, I want to make sure Kali knows she’s the one in charge of if and when.