That made my eyebrows go up. “It’s… I can kind of feel it? In my mind. And when I tell it something I want, it’s like it rummages around up there.”
“Hmm. If you try to think back to before you woke up in the tent today, did you feel that disembodied presence there with you?”
I licked my lips. This was where I had to wonder whether maybe, just maybe, I should tell him that, no, I’d felt nothing.
I was about to, but before I could, Inkiri leaned in and said, “Tell us, sweet thing. Did you feel that presence when we brought you here to help you heal?”
His voice was steady, but he was anxious for me to answer. He’d been worried about me, had told me as much. Had he slept? Had he held me? Sat by my bedside all this time? Would he have protected me if the cola ash asshats had found me?
I was pretty sure the answer to all of that was a resounding yes. He’d probably taken care of me more than he had himself, and I wasn’t about to reward that with a lie.
“I, uhm, I kind of felt it. But in the distance. And it greeted me. Or acknowledged that I was back home, you know?”
Kinnek tilted his head in the bagu way. “Home? I understand you came here vacationing.”
“Yeah, but… I don’t understand how this works either. Maybe home as in, Earth? I don’t know how else to explain it.”
“Very, very interesting.” Kinnek fixed me with his sharp gaze. His eyes were a dark Prussian blue rather than Vergis’s steel gray, but there was something about Kinnek that made me think he had the kind of X-ray vision that allowed him to look through my skull and straight into my thoughts.
Everyone in the room went quiet—everyone except for Wilson, who hopped over and landed in my lap, where she promptly sat and pecked at my sleeve until I petted her.
“If Donna is agreeable, I think we should stay here for a few days so Rory can fully recover,” Kinnek said at length.
Donna shrugged. “If Wilson’s okay with that, I’m okay with it. Inkiri and the others are always welcome anyway. Plus, there’ve been a lot of those purple monsters here since yesterday.”
Kinnek grinned and stood. “Wonderful! Muffin, we should step out and tell your daddy. The monsters, I expect, might be attracted by the magic. The pull might have been stronger while Rory was hurt and easy prey, so it should lessen now that he’s ambulant again and not so easily snatched.”
Vergis eyed the coffee maker longingly. “As I said, a twink trouble magnet. You really need me to make a phone call?”
Kinnek clicked. “Muffin, I don’t need you, but you don’t call anywhere near often enough. Just because your daddy grunts rather than use his words doesn’t mean he doesn’t like to hear your voice more often. Plus, did I not ground you a mere hour ago? You should consider your umbilicus reestablished until I decide otherwise.”
Kinnek’s tone of voice implied the chop-chop. He headed back out, and Vergis grumbled, but followed his dad.
“Well, those two are very extra, aren’t they?” Donna got up and poured the rest of the coffee into her mug.
“It’s a hangu thing,” Inkiri said.
“You sure?” Donna and I said in chorus, and Wilson clucked contentedly. For all I knew, she agreed with us.
Inkiri’s chest rattled with a growly purr. “Some of it is a hangu thing, at least.”
I relaxed against him, letting all the tension bleed out of my body.
“I’m deciding not to care. Hey, Ink, thanks for taking care of me. When I was out, you know. And Donna? Sorry. About bringing the monsters here.”
“Aww,” Donna cooed. “Don’t you worry. Vergis times two seems like they can handle all the extermination I might need done around the place. Plus, so far, the electric fence has been doing its job pretty well. I figure, wherever those things come from, they don’t know what an electric fence is.”
I remembered my time in the world the monsters came from and shivered. “I think you’re right about that.”
Inkiri clicked. “It’s nothing for you to worry over, sweet thing. I will always take care of you. I’m overjoyed that you’re feeling better again. I’m overjoyed that you’re awake and talking to me, even if it seems you favor Wilson over me now.”
I turned so I could kiss him without dislodging the chicken. “I don’t. She’s just sitting on me because your lap is taken for the foreseeable future.”
Inkiri gave me the softest and most loving of smiles. “Do you promise, Sadir?”
I let out a big breath and my shoulders relaxed. “Yeah, promise.”
It was a movie moment, even with the chicken, and for once, no one interrupted it.
