Page 87 of Dancing for the Minotaur

Terra couldn’t forget that “lovely one” was what he’d called her when she was dancing for him at The Doll House. He hadn’t called her that once in all the time they’d been working together, but he seemed to feel more comfortable and informal here. Was he calling her that because he had feelings for her and he was finally feeling ready to show them?

Stop it, she scolded herself. Stop reading into everything!

With an effort, she turned her attention back to the alien tree-house kitchen. One of the strangest things was what Taurex called a “cleansing vine.” It grew along the side of the countertop—or “food preparation surface” as the big Monstrum called it—and was covered in small fuzzy leaves. When he placed a dirty utensil beneath it, the vine immediately wrapped around the object, the fuzzy leaves moving over every surface before releasing it again completely clean and dry.

Terra stared at it in surprise.

“You have a plant dishwasher. Or a dishwasher plant, I guess,” she said.

Taurex nodded thoughtfully.

“I suppose you could call it that.”

Terra shook her head.

“Your entire house is making me jealous!”

He gave her a sidelong look.

“You know…you could live in one like it.”

The words were spoken casually, but they made Terra’s heart skip a beat.

She glanced up at him. Taurex appeared to be examining the vegetables in one of the baskets, but she wondered if the statement had really been as casual as it sounded.

Don’t read too much into everything he says, she warned herself. You’re being ridiculous!

Still, she couldn’t help imagining what it might be like to wake up every morning in a house like this, surrounded by glowing flowers and living furniture, with Taurex moving around the kitchen preparing breakfast.

The image was dangerously seductive, and she did her best to push it away…though it wouldn’t quite go.

“Come,” Taurex said, apparently unaware of her thoughts. “I will show you the bathing chamber.”

So Terra followed him down another softly curving hallway. What she saw at the end of it, nearly made her gasp.

The bathroom—or bathing chamber, as Taurex called it—was perhaps the most beautiful room in the entire house.

One wall was covered completely in flowering vines, and the floor was formed from smooth pale stones that felt warm beneath Terra’s thin-soled shoes. In the center was an enormous shallow basin surrounded by broad green leaves, and at the far end of the room water poured continuously from an opening in the living wall, forming a shimmering waterfall that disappeared into a channel in the floor.

Terra walked toward it in amazement.

“This is your shower?” she asked, pointing.

Taurex nodded.

“Yes. You could call it that.”

She reached one hand beneath the falling water and found it was warm. Not just warm, though—perfectly warm.

“How do you control the temperature?” she asked.

Taurex pointed toward three flowers growing beside the waterfall.

One was bright red, one was blue, and one was white.

“You touch the red bloom for warmer water and the blue for cooler. The white one stops the flow,” he explained. “But mostly I just let it go—it flows right back into underground river that runs through the entire Mother Ship and is purified by special reeds as is goes.”

“Wait…you have a river flowing through the ship?” Terra asked, surprised.