The Perilous Sea (The Elemental Trilogy #2)

She drank with her eyes closed. “Did I fall asleep again?”


“With panacea, even when you stop sleeping all the time, you will still sleep a great deal. Besides, you exerted yourself when Atlantis found us.”

Which could impede her recovery. Ideally it should be nothing but rest for her, until her sleep pattern returned to normal.

“Did more dangerous things happen after the distance spell-casting?”

“Not to us, but there are some caravanists who will have stories to tell their grandchildren. They will probably weave in elaborate details about the sand wyvern eating half of their camels, while the demonic, horned rider laughed.”

She tittered. “That does sound like you.”

“I am very proud of my forked tail, but I will deny the existence of horns to my last breath.”

Now she half opened her eyes. “All I see is a halo.”

“Your compliment made my tail fall off. Now look what you have done.”

She laughed again, softly. “So did the sand wyvern get enough water?”

“I think so. And that was pure greed on the sand wyvern’s part—they can go ten days without.”

“It’d be nice if we could, though I’m not sure I want my skin to look like that.” The sand wyvern was very nearly invisible when set against the desert floor, its exterior resembling exactly a pile of small boulders half-buried in sand.

“I hate to tell you this, but that is how our skin already looks.”

She closed her eyes again. “Your looks are no doubt suffering. My beauty, however, is as indestructible as the Angels’ wings.”

“Well,” he said, “you do look very nice . . .”

Her eyelashes fluttered.

“. . . ly shriveled.”

Her lips curved. “May I remind you that you are speaking to someone capable of smiting you with a thunderbolt?”

“Is there any point to flirting with a girl who is not capable of that?”

“So this is your idea of flirting?”

He cradled her hand in one of his to check her pulse. “Whatever I call it, your heart is beating fast.”

“Are you sure that is not a residual effect of the panacea?”

He rubbed his thumb over her wrist. Her skin was as soft as the first summer breeze. “I am absolutely certain.”

Her breaths quickened. Her lips part slightly. And suddenly his own heart thumped, blood rushing in his ears.

The next moment he was knocked flat by a returning hunting rope, wrapped around a still-writhing snake.

She laughed and laughed as he wrestled with the hunting rope, trying to loosen it without getting bitten by the snake, while the hungry sand wyvern growled with impatience.

With the sand wyvern at last enjoying its afternoon snack, he returned to her side. She was already almost asleep again.

“Well,” he said, “at least this time we were not interrupted by a sand wyvern.”

“No,” she replied, her voice barely audible. “I thought we might create some sparks together. But now I know nothing we do will ever rival the passionate embrace between a hunting rope and a snake.”

She fell asleep with a smirk on her face. He looked at her a long time, smiling.





CHAPTER 22


England

WINTERVALE’S BALANCE AND MOBILITY REFUSED to improve. A week after he woke up from his long sleep, he still could not stand upright on his own, let alone slide down the banister with a thump and a triumphant whoop, as he used to do.

To walk to and from classes, to have his meal in the dining room, even to go to the lavatory, someone else had to accompany him. That someone was almost always Kashkari, who had taken to sitting in Wintervale’s room, so the latter did not need to shout at the top of his lungs if he needed a biscuit from his cabinet or felt like opening his window for a breath of fresh air.

But that was not the only thing different about Wintervale.

He had always been more open with Titus than with the other boys, more frank about the frustrations of his life: his fragile mother, his homesickness for the Domain, and, more obliquely, his fear that he would not live up to the great Wintervale name.

Glimpses of an inner life. Fleeting glimpses, as Wintervale was determined to enjoy himself to the maximum and quite adept—or so Titus suspected—at burying any emotional turmoil beneath a new round of fun.

The new Wintervale still maintained that outward appearance of bubbly conviviality. But now, when they were alone—infrequently since Kashkari was his near-constant companion—Titus found him to be quieter and more inquisitive.