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“Yes.”
She experiments, letting the contact fade. I feel its absence, then her hand on my chest.
“And that?”
“Only your hand.”
She opens the bond again. Her relief reaches me before she settles her cheek against my shoulder.
The grove remains around us, warm and quiet. I ask the bower to keep out the evening chill, and draw Vai closer.
“Can we stay tonight?” she asks.
“Yes. I’ll have word taken to Reivaka, so she doesn’t wait for us at dinner.”
“How?”
“The path keeper passes the outer wall at dusk. I can open the entrance and speak to him.”
“In a while,” she says.
“In a while.”
She touches one of the dark seams along my cheek. I have stopped bracing for the touch.
“I’d like to see that house by the lake,” she says. “The one you were telling me about.”
“I’ll take you.”
“After I’ve visited Asha.”
“Yes.”
“And asked Reivaka what she wants done before you disappear.”
I laugh. Vai smiles against my chest, pleased to feel it happen as well as hear it.
Later, I open the bower enough to reach our clothes without disturbing her. I draw her coat over her and put the boots where she can find them in the morning. Beyond the inner screen, the grove’s entrance stays open.
When the keeper’s lantern passes the wall, I draw leaves over my hips and go far enough to ask him to tell Reivaka we will return for breakfast. He nods and continues on his round. I come back to the moss before Vai has finished arranging the coat.
She lifts its edge for me.
“It won’t cover both of us,” I say.
“Then come closer.”
I lie down beside her, and she puts the coat over my arm as though that settles it. Her bag stands on the root where she left it. She reaches past it to make a place for the loose leaves, then puts her head on my shoulder.
This time, when I turn toward the place beside me, she is there.
VAI
Daurek has most of my coat and none of the use of his left arm.
I have been sleeping on it. When I lift my head, he opens his eyes and looks at me with such immediate pleasure that I forget what I meant to say.
“Good morning,” he says.
