Page 18 of Dark Destiny: The Turning Of The Loom

"The audacity." Yaaf tried for humor. "Point me in his direction, and I will give him a piece of my mind."

That finally got a laugh out of her. "Vrog is half Kra-ell, so he might not be as easy to intimidate as the immortals, and besides, he's a super nice guy. He's building personalized homeschooling programs for the kids, and now he's working with Saphira on something for the women because they need to learn much more than just English. Half of them can't read at all, and even the ones who can are seriously lacking in education. That includes me. I can read English, so I'm ahead, but I don't know much about anything, really. Anyway, to teach the other women, Vrog needs the computer to communicate with them in the island language, but no one other than us knows it, so he has no books to feed the computer. So that leaves me, the only one who speaks it and also speaks English well enough to explain it to a machine."

"We can help," Yaaf said. "The eight of us are proficient in both languages, and it's not as if we are overly busy."

She tilted her head. "What about the Guardian training?"

"It doesn't take all day. We have plenty of free time and nothing fun to do with it other than hang out in the gym or watch television."

She gave him a crooked smile. "That might be true of the others, but you're doing plenty of fun things in your free time."

He laughed and brought her hand to his lips for a kiss. "That's true. Playing with Tomek is the best part of my day."

She slapped his shoulder. "You're such a tease."

"Fine. You are the best part of my day. Tomek comes second."

His teasing managed to put a smile on her face for about a minute before her forehead creased again.

"Seriously, though. I appreciate the offer. I don't know how I'm supposed to teach the computer. Vrog says it needs words and that he will come over to show me how to do it when he checks on Tomek this afternoon." She sighed, and the pinched expression returned. "I was a gardener, and now I'm expected to be a spokeswoman for the enclosure women, a liaison with Burda, and a teacher to Tomek, the women, and the computer." She laughed, and it sounded like she was on the verge of hysteria again.

"Just tell me how I can help, and I will."

"Thank you." She squeezed his hand. "I could have handled all that if I wasn't so anxious about the transition, and as if that wasn't enough, now I'm also worried about being pregnant." She turned to look at him. "Do the others know?"

"No. I put it behind the wall, and it's up now. All they know is that I'm meeting with you. They don't know where we are going."

"Good. Thank you." She looked ahead again. "It's not that I mind them, but I'm about to meet the doctor and tell him private things, and I'd rather that was between me and you and him, and not me and you and him and seven other men."

"They'd rather not hear that either, but as I said, they don't even know where we are going."

Sullha nodded and walked a few more steps before speaking again. "I'm also worried about the other women. If I can't do this, what does that mean for them? If I transition, they will be encouraged to follow, but if I don't, they will go back to believing the teachings of Mortdh, that they are inferior and cannot turn immortal. I'm also worried that even if I transition and they want to follow in my footsteps, they won't find mates to induce them."

"What more can I do?" he asked. "Tell me, and I'll do it."

She let go of his hand and hooked her arm through his. "You're doing it. You're taking me to the doctor and holding my hand. Just don't let me run away if the doctor scares me."

"You won't run."

"I might. I'm very fast."

"I'm faster."

"That's why I brought you."

Merlin's house sat at the end of a lane, and from the outside it looked like every other house in the village, but Yaaf had heard rumors about the eccentric doctor, so he expected the interior not to look as nice.

The woman who opened the door was striking. She was tall, very pale, with blond hair that was almost white. It was wavy, piled on top of her head, and secured with pins. Her eyes were pale blue and kind.

"Sullha. Yaaf. Come in. Just be careful to walk around the stacks of books, and don't touch anything made of glass. I try my best to keep Merlin organized, but I'm losing the battle."

A laboratory had taken over what used to be the living room.

Jars lined every surface, glass tubing ran from one bench to another, and books were stacked on the floor and on the chairs.

"This way." She led them to a door at the back, beyond which lay a small, clean sitting room.

There were two armchairs, a couch, and a low coffee table with nothing on it but a candlestick.