Honor Among Thieves (The Honors #1)(73)

It took a long time, and no time at all, inside my head. The only way I really knew that hours had passed was that Bea began to sound more and more ragged. She was hoarse and breathless now, but we were so close. With hands and feet, I renewed my percussion on the floor with a frenzy that I knew in some distant corner of my mind wasn’t good for me, but he was close, close enough to touch and hold and keep. When I pulled him out of shadow, Nadim’s great body vibrated, toppling me sideways, and I was too tired to get up. I let my cheek stay where it was, pressed against the warming floor. I’d lost feeling in my lower limbs again, from sitting in one place for so long, but sensation burned back in.

“He’s awake!” My voice came out hoarse.

Bea didn’t seem to have much volume left. By the way she was shaking, she had been performing that damned aria for hours, and my poor hands were swollen again, badly bruised from all the drumming, and the fragile skin at the seam where my toes joined my foot had split in two places. She bent over, gasping, and collapsed on the stage, sprawled in an exhausted, dramatic X of limbs and a spreading pool of curls.

“I’m sorry,” Nadim said quietly, and the warm, familiar voice washed over me like summer rain. “I didn’t mean to.”

I was too tired to pretend to be okay. “I was so scared. That you were dying, that we would, and it would be all my fault. Thank you. For coming back to us.” Tears burned at the corner of my dry eyes, but I didn’t let them fall.

“I’m sorry,” he said again. “It was my fault.”

“Our fault.” Guilt and regret threatened to drown me.

“Nadim, I’m glad you’re back,” Bea said. Croaked, really.

“Your voice!” He sounded horrified. She weakly flopped a hand in the air.

“I’ll be fine. My vó sang herself hoarse many times in her day.” She levered herself up to a sitting position with a groan. “Are you all right, Nadim?” She pressed her palms against the floor—an embrace. A connection.

“Yes.” That, at least, sounded decisive. Then his voice turned hesitant. “You—you saved me. Both of you.”

I raised my head, finally, and exchanged a look with Beatriz. We were exhausted, sweaty, trembling with the aftermath, but that made it worthwhile. Bea fairly glowed.

It gave me the strength to push myself to a sitting position with my back to the wall. Ow. My body was starting to protest, and it had a lot to complain about.

“I’m glad to hear your voice, Nadim,” Bea said softly. “Don’t go again. Please.”

“I won’t,” he said. “I’m sorry I distressed you. I am bringing all your life-support functions to optimal levels.”

The lights were coming up now, and I could feel the warm air pouring in to diffuse the bitter chill. Life, returning.

“Can you manage now?” I asked.

“Yes. I’m in some pain, but the damage will heal.” He paused. “I feel that things happened while I was away. Will you tell me?”

Beatriz sighed. “Later. If you don’t mind, I desperately want a shower. And a few hours of sleep.”

“You must be burnt.” I reached up to grasp her hand as she got up. “Maybe see EMITU for the backache and the throat?”

She shook her head. “Sleep will fix me. I’d rather not be fuzzy.” She bent to whisper, “You’re staying awake?” I nodded. “Good. Don’t let him go out again, okay?”

“I won’t.”

She hurried off to her room for privacy, maybe to sob in relief in the shower that we’d survived this challenge. She wouldn’t want me to see that, much less Nadim.

I wanted to feel victorious. It was like winning the Olympic gold in space hurdles, only there would be no fancy ceremony, no medals. Our only reward was currently performing some kind of self-inventory, with little purrs of curiosity.

“Fascinating,” Nadim said.

“What is?”

“I can dark run now.” Together, those words made no particular sense, though I understood each of them separately.

“Which means?” I studied the damage I’d done to my feet. Blood trickled from the splits in the skin between my toes. Ow.

“I told you that I go into deep sleep—dark sleep—unexpectedly.”

“Which is why you need the alarm, which by the way doesn’t do a damn thing until it’s installed.”

“Yes,” he said, and sounded chagrined. “I’m aware of that. I never thought I would need it on the Tour. That was my error.”

“Pretty sure it was our error.”

“Yes.” There was something both warm and regretful in that word. “That’s true. And we must be careful.”

“You were saying . . . ?”

“Dark sleep is a natural process that allows our bodies to rapidly develop and mature. It’s similar to a . . . human growth spurt, but normally, we control it and enter that stasis when it’s safe.”

As analogies went, it wasn’t bad. “So what does ‘dark run’ do?” Sounds ominous.

“I can vanish from sensors. Hide myself.”

“You have a stealth mode? Cool. But . . . you feel conflicted about it?” His ambivalence whistled through me, jarring as a train signal that just wouldn’t stop.