He finally relents, his arms and legs falling away even though he’s still grumbling. “So you’d kill yourself to help her?”
I roll my eyes and slide out of bed. “Getting up early isn’t killing myself.”
The stretch of my sore muscles feels good, actually. I clean my teeth and smooth the wrinkles out of my clothes. If I’d been thinking clearly last night, I would have taken them off to sleep. Nothing a trip through the cleansing unit won’t fix, though.
“It’s killingme.” He pulls a fur over his head.
I pull it off again and lean over to kiss his grumpy cheek. “Wake up, Sleeping Beauty. We have work to do.”
“Youhave work. Lock me in a cell so I can sleep,” he says, rolling over but not before I see his lips curve up momentarilybefore he turns to face the wall. The movement steals his smile and makes him grunt in pain, and my heart melts. Poor guy. He worked so hard.
“Okay. I’m sure that’ll be fine. Bring some furs so you don’t have to sleep on the bare floor, and we can grab food on the way.”
Lyro sighs and reluctantly rolls out of bed. While he’s getting ready, I mix up some fresh nectar and feed Elvis. I miss carrying him with me everywhere, but he’s doing so well in his tank.
When he lived in my necklace, he’d often spin a tiny silk “door” over the mouth of the spiral shell, but now he’s constructed a whole soft, fluffy nest under a broad leaf. It’s beautifully symmetrical and fenced with delicate, lace webs like the skirt on a wedding dress.
“You’re amazing,” I whisper, a little embarrassed to be overheard talking to an insect in front of Lyro. “I wish I had your talent for making the universe a more beautiful place. I’m sorry I didn’t realize what you needed earlier. I thought you were happy in your little shell.”
By the door, Lyro clears his throat, sounding irritated, so I scramble up, expecting to be scolded for making him wait. Sure enough, he’s frowning at me, arms full of furs.
“Sorry,” I say quickly, scooting past him into the hall. “Let’s go.”
He follows me out. “Stop apologizing. It’s boring.”
“Sor—” I swallow the second half of the word. “I’ll try not to.”
“You do,” he says gruffly.
I shake my head, confused. “I do what?”
“Make the universe more—frix, never mind. Just don’t apologize to R’Hiza-damned bugs anymore. Especially ones whose lives you saved.”
He stops by the door to the cleansing unit, which is a good thing because I completely forgot about it.
“You heard what I said to Elvis?” I gape at him.
“Irrans have very good hearing.” That’s the understatement of the century. I was barely whispering!
We squeeze inside the cleansing unit because he refuses to leave the furs outside in the hall where they could be “polluted,” whatever that means. When the cycle finishes, my clothes are de-wrinkled and Lyro’s bad mood looks smoothed-out, too.
Instead of having breakfast with Rose and Oljin, we head to the hangar so he can grab food he likes from his ship’s rations, and then, weighed down with snacks and furs, I turn toward the main control room, where the holding cell is located.
Lyro blocks me with his body, jerking his head at the passage in the opposite direction. “Hatchery,” he commands. When my brows jump, he shrugs. “I can sleep just as well there. Maybe better because I can make sure you eat and take breaks.”
“The singing won’t bother you?”
He makes an irritated noise, ignoring the question, and pushes past me, already on his way. I have to hurry to catch up.
While he makes a nest in the back corner and curls up to sleep with his cloak drawn around him like a bat, I check the eggs. There’s new energy in the hatchery. My little tadpoles seem to know their time is getting close. They’re so active, waving their arms and wagging their little, shrinking tails that will be totally gone by the time they hatch.
I can’twaitto meet them and get to know their little personalities. I kind of hope Lyro’s ship takes a while to fix so I have more time with them before he takes me...wherever he’s taking me. We should probably talk about that.
We will. Later.
Even though I’m tired, I swear, singing revives me. The more I sing, the better I feel. The song order shifts today, the songs a little faster and more complicated, the messages urging the babies to do their best and grow to get ready for the Hatching. Ihave to pay closer attention than usual to get it right, so my mind has less time to wander.
During my first break, Lyro is there as soon as I step off the dais. He shoves a bottle of water into my hand, grunting with approval when I drink from it. Then he swaps out the bottle for a foil packet from his ship.
