“Now I’m feeling used,” I said, but I followed him up the stairs anyway. “Where are we even going?”
“The roof.”
“What, your pigeon murder roof?”
Vergis snorted. “One: It’s nice up there. Two: The roof is pretty substantial, and the noise of certain people fucking like rabbits doesn’t carry that far up.”
“And now I’m feeling judged. Or are you still jealous? You know, I’m kind of sorry, but it’s not like I can change anything about me and Inkiri. I wouldn’t even if I could, if I’m being perfectly honest.”
I would not have told Vergis this a month ago, but while we’d never be braiding each other’s hair, we were…friendly now. Ish. He wasn’t so bad, once you got past his moods and sarcasm, and the fact that he always needed an extra clothes basket for all his knives and other weapons when we got ready to soak.
“Didn’t experience enough awkwardness for the day and needed some more, did you? We are not talking about something that never happened, because it only makes you more annoyingly likable. Now move your butt, unless you’re feeling too sore.”
I followed Vergis up the stairs. After all, I did feel some camaraderie here about not enjoying the dinner conversation.
Vergis opened the door to the guest room Nokim and Fellisse were in, which was really just a kind of studio for Kinnek, but set up like an office apart from the easel in one corner. There was a desk by the window and an old couch that was the kind of brown that never fit in anywhere, and Kinnek’s supply of paints and brushes was on a shelf that ran the length of the wall, along with more books. The guys had their bedding rolled up against another wall, and their backpacks sat neatly next to the couch.
On the way to the hallway, there was a more unusual art piece, and not one Kinnek had made. I was just a gold-painted frame around a rectangle of wall that had been preserved when the rest of it had been painted over in light mauve. In the frame was a child’s stick drawing. One stick person had large horns, the child stick person had small, stubby horns, and the human had a beard.
Vergis noticed me looking at what could only be his childhood artwork.
“Not a word,” he said.
I shrugged, but decided not to tell him that how Kinnek had immortalized his son’s first attempts with paint made me kind of jealous.
I decided to change the subject, even if Vergis’s childhood art had never been the subject to begin with. “I haven’t seen your dad paint since we got here.”
Vergis headed for a ladder fastened to the shelf. It was one of those library ladders that you could move along a metal railing to get to the top shelves, but when I looked up, there was a hatch in the ceiling by the exterior wall, and the ladder functioned as an access point for that as well.
“He does creative bursts, then nothing for a while, then painting nonstop again. That’s why Dad put the couch in here. Kinnek would just sleep in a chair or on the floor sometimes when he was in the middle of doing art, and Dad didn’t like that.” Vergis loped up the rungs easily and slid the deadbolt back. “Come on.”
I looked at the door, then up at Vergis. I didn’t mind heights—at least, I didn’t think I did—and since it was this or tense dinner conversation with Zeddira, who was apparently trying to seduce me while the brother I was actually mated to was right there, I followed Vergis up the ladder, far less gracefully.
I stopped on the ladder when I was far enough up to get a good look around the roof. “Wow.” I managed the rest of the way and turned on the spot. “This is nice.”
There was Astroturf up here, and a hammock hung between the solar panel mount and some pipe thing that was probably there for an important reason. There was more camping gear, but because I didn’t know anything about surviving in the outdoors, I only recognized chairs and one of those really substantial yoga mats you used for sleeping on. There was also a telescope pointed at the distant sky.
“You can have the hammock.” Vergis dropped into one of the chairs.
“Can we look through the telescope? I always wanted a telescope. Can I have a look?” It was one of the big ones, and I cautiously pointed at it, too scared I’d break it if I touched it.
Vergis sighed. “Yeah. Moon’s almost full. You can look at that. Nokim was very excited about seeing all the craters up there and hearing about how we gave them names.”
“You’ve been coming up here with Nokim?” I bumped him in the shoulder. That was a bit weird since Vergis was about as solid as Inkiri so he didn’t move at all, but hey, I was trying. “Way to go.”
Vergis growled. “It’s not like that. Anyway, it’s none of your business.” He went to the telescope and fumbled with it, looked up, fumbled some more, then stepped back. “Here, gaze your pretty green eyes out. You can adjust it here and here.”
“Oh, cool. Thank you so much.”
“Yeah, whatever.” He walked back to the chair and plopped into it.
I looked through the telescope. Vergis had set it up perfectly to show me the moon, so luminous it was almost blinding, crisp and beautiful. It looked like it always had in pictures on the news, but this was different. It was like finally making bread yourself after only ever getting the bland type from the store before.
“This is really cool. Have you always been interested in astronomy?”
“Daddy is. And then Dad—Kinnek—had this idea that it would help me know my place in the universe if I learned about it.”
I looked up from the telescope. “Did you ever go to school? I mean, you couldn’t have here, but with magic, is there something that made it possible?”
