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Lila plopped in the driver’s seat and started the sedan’s engine. “Yes, Tristan. He did. I often take jobs for my father. You know that.”
“You’re exhausted, and you just took a job that almost killed you less than a week ago. You can’t even ride your Firefly right now. Doesn’t he care?”
“Should I forget about finding Oskar because I can’t ride my damn motorcycle?” Lila replied, pulling out of the parking spot. “If I hadn’t spent the last week planning how to break Oskar out of LeBeau’s, then I would have had plenty of sleep.”
“That’s different. The oracles can wait. Oskar could die if we don’t save him.” He grazed her cheek as she drove. “Did you get any sleep at all last night, Lila?”
Her toes curled in her boots when he said her name, his mouth lingering on the vowels like one might tongue a sweet. He had just begun using it the week before, and even still, said it rarely. The man obviously had no idea of the effect it had on her.
She batted away his hand, unsure what might happen if she let him carry on. “I had a few hours. Besides, very little of what I researched last night had to do with the oracles, so don’t blame my father just because I’m a little tired.”
“You’re not a little tired, and you’re not fine. You already have dark circles under your eyes, and it’s only going to get worse until we find Oskar. If your father saw you now, even he would notice, and—”
“He saw me this morning.”
“Didn’t he care?”
Lila nearly wanted to laugh at how uptight he’d become over a few hours of lost sleep. Such a fuss when he didn’t care that he’d turned her away from his bed for a week.
The workborn really were different.
“I’m a grown adult, Tristan,” she said, stopping at a red light. “Grown adults often have to work when they’re tired.”
“Good parents would give you time to recover. Good bosses, too. There’s too much going on lately. He’s going to lose you as a resource if he’s not careful.”
“What do you propose? If he put someone else on this case, they would have arrested Jake and returned the girls to their parents. Part of why he puts me on these cases is because he trusts my judgment.”
“Your judgment or your moral flexibility?”
“Both.”
“I propose a vacation when this is all over. We’ll go somewhere nice, get away from everything for a few weeks.”
“A few weeks?”
“You drive a hard bargain. A month, then.”
“This isn’t a negotiation.”
“Isn’t everything a negotiation with your kind?”
Lila studied Tristan, her gaze drawn to his long eyelashes. She couldn’t imagine a vacation with Tristan being fun. Not now, anyway. He’d become a Winter Solstic
e gift she wasn’t allowed to open, for the winter holiday never came.
She nearly longed for the days she couldn’t stand him.
“Whatever you’re thinking, stop.” He frowned, turning up the air conditioning. “What’s going on with the oracles?”
Lila quickly told him all that she knew. “There’s really nothing to investigate, and I have no desire to trek all the way out to the temple.”
“But she summoned you for help. She just wasn’t sure if she could trust you.”
“So?”
“The oracles don’t summon outsiders for help. Doesn’t that mean anything to you?”
“It means she wants me to back off from my father’s investigation.”
