“Your…Pardon me?”
“Not tuxerados,” Dorn admonished. “Tuxedingdongs.”
“Sorry,” Shiloh said, a pucker of concentration forming between her brows. “I’m not sure I…”
“The human formalwear,” I told her, standing and testing the feeling of my own skates. They were not as good as the proper ones I’d once borrowed from the school I’d lived at as a young child. But they would do. “The outfit made up of the dark suit and the white shirt beneath. Tuxedurango.”
“Oh!” Her expression cleared. “Are you talking about tuxedos?”
“Yes. Is that not what I said?”
She lifted her slender shoulders and let them drop, smiling. “Close enough.”
“We did not want to get our tuxedealios wet or dirty on the ride over here,” Xennet explained. “They already got damaged that day in the rain. When we rescued the other warden from that broken beam he was unfortunate enough to be standing under when it fell.”
“Mine got pretty torn up,” Dorn admitted. “But I’ve repaired it well enough.”
“I’d love to see them,” Shiloh said. “Maybe later. You can wear them for dinner, if you like.”
If they were wearing theirs, I would wear mine, too.
But right now, I was wearing skates. And I intended to use them.
“Shall we go?”
Shiloh was still gripping me. When I’d stood up, she’d let her hand slide down from my left shoulder to the crook of my elbow.
“You go ahead,” Shiloh said. “I want to watch you for a minute.”
I did not want to leave her there. Did not want to go without her.
“I’d like to watch someone who actually knows what they’re doing before I give it a shot,” she said. She gave my arm a small pat, then let it go.
If that was what she would like, then I would give it to her.
I stepped onto the ice. And for a vastly disorienting moment, it was as if I’d stepped into my own past. So strange how cycles and cycles later, an entire world away, and the cold, clear cut of a skate on ice could feel just the same. My muscles responded at once, fuelled by memory.
It was easy. So easy that my breath shot out of me on a great, happily surprised gust. I started off slowly, getting used to the new skates on the surface of the pond. I also noticed, after a few strides, that it felt different to skate with only one hand. Plus I was overall larger, heavier, stronger than I’d been as a boy. But my body adjusted quickly, and soon enough I was moving with comfortable competence, speeding up, slowing down, stopping with ice spraying like a frothy wave from the sides of the blades.
“Oh dear. Ah!”
I spun at once at the sound of Shiloh’s voice. She’d stepped out onto the ice and appeared to have immediately frozen, frightened by how slippery it was. She teetered, her arms outstretched, her knees locked tight.
Her eyes had panic in them. And they sought out me and me alone. Even though the others were closer.
I shot across the pond to her, catching her around the waist first with my tail, then with my arms when I fully reached her.
“You made it look so easy,” she said between shaky laughs. Her face was at my chest. Her warm, misting breath skimmed my skin.
I held her like that. For a moment. Probably for too long. I just could not quite seem to make my arms let go.
It was the sound of the other two venturing onto the ice that finally distracted me enough to pull away from the embrace. I’d almost entirely forgotten Xennet and Dorn were here.
“Blast,” Dorn growled, his thick legs straining to maintain his balance on the ice. “Blast it all, Rivven. It’s slipperier than a water ardu’s belly out here!”
“Do not try to walk!” Xennet advised brightly. “We must do as Rivven does. And glide along!” He demonstrated this, doing a reasonably good job of sliding across the ice in his boots.
Dorn attempted to do the same, but ended up sort of shuffling along instead, his face screwed up with concentration.It wasn’t anything close to skating, but it was good enough to keep him from falling for now, and I turned my attention back to Shiloh.
