He looked directly at me for the first time all morning. His cheeks were still flushed, and every muscle drawn tense. “Things must be very different among your people.”
Of course the Christian world’s disapproval must weigh heavy on his mind, as it did for Leroy and Jesse. I shrugged. “Priests of the air can be hypocrites for fifty years about things that can’t be ignored for fifty thousand. We wed in order to breed on land”—and here I swallowed—“but for some, water lovers are a different matter. Of course people of the air can’t simply wait.”
The color in his cheeks deepened. “You realize we could go to jail. If there were even rumors, Ron—Mr. Spector—could lose his job.”
I hadn’t thought about that. “You know I won’t risk you going through any such thing.”
He ducked his head. “Caleb was staring at me this morning. I thought he was just in a poor mood, but…”
“I’ll speak with him.” I paused, still thinking of my own people’s strictures. “I wonder if we ought to do as Grandfather suggested after all. Before, I assumed you’d eventually want to take a wife of your own people. You still might, I suppose.”
He shook his head violently—and then more so. “Miss Marsh! Your grandfather … I couldn’t. I wouldn’t do that to you. I can’t believe he made that suggestion.”
I shrugged. “He’s right that I’ll mourn you. Having a child—and perhaps mourning them as well—frightens me terribly, and I’m beginning to believe I must. But I won’t press; I didn’t mean to offend you.” Now I could feel myself flushing. With a little effort, I could have forced my capillaries to dilate, and looked perfectly calm. That seemed a poor idea. “Your own family must expect children, though?”
He winced. “My family also expects me to move back to L.A. and join my dad’s insurance business. I’m used to disappointing them.”
“Ah.” Snow stuck in clumps to the juniper bushes beside Trumbull’s front step. I ran my finger through the greenery, examined the crystals as they melted against my skin. “You were angry at my family, yesterday.”
“They expect too much from you.”
“Caleb and I are all they have left on land.” The snow soothed, melting to clean cold water against the lines of my palm. “If that’s a lot of weight to bear, it’s no flaw or malice on their part.”
He adjusted his feet around the cane, and I knew we ought to go back inside and find him a seat. But I didn’t want to break the conversation.
He said: “You told your grandfather and your priest, plain as day, that you didn’t appreciate them trying to matchmake. And they kept at it anyway.”
I shrugged. “They’re right that I have an obligation. I didn’t want to admit it, but I also—it’s not reasonable; it can’t be entirely Caleb’s and my choice whether there will ever be more of our people. I don’t blame them for having opinions—or for how they expressed those opinions—when they’d just learned we were still alive.”
He caught his breath. “I hadn’t thought about that part. I suppose if my grandparents believed I was dead, I might forgive whatever they said when they found me.”
“All the elders on that beach had just learned, too, who they had lost. Children, grandchildren, friends, husbands—we’re all they have left. That matters, even if I don’t like the weight.” For a moment, the image of life without that burden washed over me. I pictured an Innsmouth never raided. A husband of my own people, children preparing to come of age. There might still be heartache in such a world: a friend lost to a storm, a child stillborn. “The universe is what it is.”
He opened his hand, tilted it as if letting something fall. “I’ll do what I can to help.” Then he blushed. He’d already said he wouldn’t—though I couldn’t hold it against him. “Are you certain you’re the last? Did all your people stay so close to home?”
It was a fair question. “The soldiers came in the middle of winter, and the boats were all at dock. We had people away at school—but most were brought to the camp in the weeks after the raid. We assumed those who didn’t appear hadn’t been taken alive. Any survivors would have sought out the elders, if they could. And there are lost children, of course, mist-bloods. Most in whom our blood ran true must have gone into the water long ago, but I suppose it’s possible that the youngest are still on land. And those with weak blood might still come together, and have children who can change as their parents cannot. It happens; usually they’re impossible to find before their metamorphosis. And then they make their own way home.”
“You could look.”
I nodded. I wasn’t hopeful, but I thought of the stolen child that Chulzh’th had been unable to track, and wondered if he’d ever made it into the water. If not, he’d be old now, but his offspring would still carry strength in their blood. A mist-blooded man could give me children I’d be less likely to lose. “I’ll ask the elders if they know of anywhere to look.”
Trumbull hadn’t so much as gathered wood for her hearth, but the radiators kept her house warm. I found it stifling, though the others seemed comfortable enough.
“Everything okay?” asked Audrey, and I nodded.
The small crowd around the dining room table felt uneasy, interactions edged with sandpaper. Everyone still trod cautiously around Trumbull—Charlie in particular. With luck I was the only one who noticed how he and Spector had grown formal. I ought to try and ease the tensions, as Neko did, but I wished only to run back to the ice and snow.
“Audrey,” I said, and she looked up. “You’re the … sneakiest person here.”
She nodded cheerfully. Spector raised his eyebrows and pointed at himself in exaggerated fashion, and she pouted.
I continued over their byplay: “I hope Barlow’s people have given up on guarding the gate, but I don’t want to count on it. Can you show me how you got onto the campus?”
She shrugged. “Sure.” She finished her tea in a gulp, and stood. “Lead on. Or let me lead, since I know where we’re going.”
Outside, she bumped against me, a moment’s comforting touch. “Something’s eating you.”
“Yith. Or perhaps government agents eager to arrest us? I just felt closed in, honestly—thanks for helping out.”
“No problem. I’m feeling a little twitchy myself. And you ought to learn how to sneak, anyway.”
“Do you need to get back to Hall?” I asked.