Page 244 of Every Almost

“And how many Earth years is twelve Tessarae years?”

“Well, one Tessarae year is equal to thirteen and a half Earth years.”

Charlie’s eyes went wide. “Holy shit, you are older than me!”

Tavi laughed. "Yeah, but you're also sitting on the floor in Engineering listening to Robbie Dupree on repeat at 2300. I'm allowed to call you kid."

Charlie leaned her head against his. And they stayed there for a while, two engineers on the floor of the department they ran together now alongside their other good friend. And now, she had let loose what she was holding in for so long in the quiet with the unspoken promise that Tavi would never let go.

The library wasOrion's but walking into it always made the knots in Charlie's shoulders quietly let go. It's just what the library did.

Charlie, Tavi, and Maren had come to tell Orion about the co-chief appointment, since Orion and his library were where good news went on this ship. Nobody would tell you to, you would just end up there when something mattered.

Tavi got about four words in before he started narrating the whole scene with his hands. It was a sight to watch Maren, who had already told Tavi twice that his account was "embellished," let him tell it that way anyway.

Orion listened with all his attention, and when Tavi finished, he was quiet for a moment.

"The three of you, together," he said. "Yes, that's right. That is how it should be for a long, long time." He looked at Charlie with warmth and patience when he said it. "The captain agreed to this readily, I assume."

"She did," Charlie said. "No argument."

"No," Orion said, turning back to the shelf he'd been tending. "She wouldn't have." He paused. "It has been a good season for her. It would be just fine for that to continue into next week."

"Next week?" Tavi asked.

Orion hummed.

"What's next week?" Charlie pushed.

Orion looked at the three of them. "Why, it's her birthday, of course."

Charlie stopped breathing.Reyna's birthday was next week?

"On the eighteenth. It'll be her seventy-fifth, too," Orion said lightly.

"Her... seventy-fifth," Charlie repeated.

It didn't come as a complete shock to Charlie. She knew the math, and had since her first week on the Emberkind, the whole Kaelari two-hundred-year lifespan, the woman who looked thirty-something and wasn't. So it wasn't the number that made Charlie pause. Seventy-five was early adulthood for a Kaelari.

It was that not a single person on board the ship had said a word about their Captain's milestone birthday next week.

"Does the crew do anything for it?" Charlie asked.

"No, but that is not entirely due to the crew," Orion explained, his hand stilling on the shelf. "The Captain herself does not permit a fuss. There is always a mission, or a repair, or a crew member who needs her more than a calendar does." He breathed a deep sigh. "I do not believe she has let a single birthday of hers on this ship be about her."

That landed somewhere deep under Charlie's ribs and stuck like glue. A woman who ran toward every fire on this ship, whoput herself between her crew and every dangerous event the universe threw at the Emberkind, apparently could not be talked into letting one single day be hers.

Charlie knew the type. She'd been raised by two of the best ones.

"Nope," Charlie said. "That does not pass the sniff test. Not this year, dammit."

"The sniff test?" Tavi asked, completely distracted by Charlie's words instead of the whole point.

"It's an Earth idiom," Charlie tried to explain quickly. "Essentially, it's a way humans tell if their food is bad or not. A sniff test. If it smells bad, toss it. If it smells fine, it's still good to eat."

"Well then, what the hell does it have to do with birthdays?"

"Nothing," Charlie sighed. "I'm just saying... you know what? It's not important. What is important is that we need to do something."