The Ship Beyond Time (The Girl from Everywhere #2)(65)

“What?”

“Ancient Greece,” she breathed, running her fingertips over the flat surface of the chunk of marble, which I now realized was another map. “Crowhurst said he met another Navigator there. Look . . . the cave of the oracle, and the twin mythic pools of Mnemosyne and Lethe. This is second century if it’s a day.”

“Very valuable, then.”

“Definitely!”

“Well. You’re welcome. But look what else there is.” I picked up the logbook and put it directly in her hands, lest she look next at the lamp.

“This is Crowhurst’s?”

“You told me he once filled a logbook with wild rambling and formulas for time travel. I found the rambling parts. Perhaps you can find the formulas.”

Nix scanned the pages, engrossed. “King James . . . like the Bible?”

“Possibly. The man is obsessed with playing god.”

She heard it—the bitterness in my voice—and her hands stilled. After a moment, she sighed and shut the logbook, tucking it under her arm. “You think I’m scared,” she said. “But you are too.”

I only shrugged. “I won’t bother lying, amira. Not to you.”

Her hand went to the pearl pendant at her throat; in the silence, the ticking of the clocks. “Can we go back to the Temptation?”

“Aye, Captain.”

I followed her off the Dark Horse and onto the pier, then up the gangplank to the deck of her ship. Nix dropped the logbook in the captain’s cabin and met me at the rail. To the east, dawn was breaking red—a sailor’s warning. Still, I was more at ease off the yacht. Together, we gazed into the mirror of the water, wreathed in the silvery mist of her breath. “What are you afraid of?” she said at last.

“Oblivion.” The ghost of the word hung in the air.

“Dying?”

“Doubly dying.” I grimaced. “Unwept, unhonored, and unsung. You know the poem.”

She shifted on her feet and pulled her cloak tighter around her shoulders. “You think I would forget you?”

“I . . . I don’t know.” I shook my head. “But it’s not about you. Not truly.”

“What then?”

“Amira . . .” How to explain? I took a deep breath. The night air filled me, cold as indifference. “All my life, I’ve never dared to call anything mine. It was too permanent an idea, in a world where nothing lasted. All I had were the thoughts in my head. The feelings in my heart. But now I don’t know if those are mine either.”

“What do you mean, Kash?”

I tapped my hands on the brass—would she ever understand? “Haven’t you ever wondered why you love me?”

She looked at me, surprise on her face. “No.”

The answer brought me up short. “Really?”

“There are a million things I wonder, but never that.”

I opened my mouth . . . closed it. “Why not?”

“Because . . . well.” She bit her lip. “Because it’s so obvious. The answer always comes to me before I have the chance to ask myself the question. Why? Don’t you know why you love me?”

“I know that I’m happiest at your side,” I said fervently. “I know that when we’re apart, my heart is with you, when we disagree I still want you near. It’s like I was made for you, amira, but I don’t know why.”

“Kashmir . . .” She laughed a little in disbelief. “That’s . . . that’s what love looks like.”

“But is it only a trick of Navigation?” I asked, nearly pleading. “And if so, what is truly mine?”

“I am.”

Her words took me by surprise. She said it so simply—so quiet, so true. Only two words, three letters, one breath, but never had a promise held more meaning. She turned to me then, and in her eyes, I saw not oblivion, but infinity, and the stars were not as bright as her smile.

“Nix,” I said, and her name was a poem. She tilted her face up to the dawn; my lips met hers. She pressed close to me, and then there was no past, no future—only now. No her, no me. Only us.





CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR


As I woke in Kashmir’s arms, I was half afraid it had been a dream.

But the memories came back slowly, teasingly. Kissing on the deck—pulling him toward the ladder. Sliding down after him, into his arms, my back pressed against the rungs for another breathless kiss. Letting him lead me toward his cabin as though it were a dance—a two-step where he retreated and I advanced, our hands and eyes locked, and the music was the pounding of my heart.

He’d spun me through the door, stepping in behind me. His lips brushed my shoulders, my neck, the soft skin behind my ear. He murmured sweet words in half a dozen languages, and though I didn’t know them, I understood them all. His fingers were deft on the pearl buttons of my dress; he undid them one by one, down to the small of my back. Then his hands on my skin, and tangled in my hair.

He had shrugged off his jacket. My hands slid up under his white shirt, along the rippled muscles of his stomach, and then—and then—

“Good morning, amira.”

I froze at the sound of his voice, then melted again at the look in his eyes. His hair was tousled, his smile was warm and sleepy. Bright daylight streamed through the porthole and shone on his golden skin. “Barely,” I said, my voice husky.