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Terrible, and aggressively avoiding rumination. “Tired, but every time I try to fall asleep, I fall awake.”
Auryn nodded. “Hypnic jerk.”
“So I’m trying to learn draconic.” I gestured helplessly to the array of tablets. “Would it be easier to learn it if I were in dragon form?”
According to Keon, at a certain point, to keep learning Mayriel’s math, brainpower wasn’t enough. You needed magic to comprehend it. Maybe the draconic language was like that. Maybe I needed to be in dragon form to grasp the fundamentals.
“Pups learn conversational draconic before they ever shift.” He looked around. “Keon was with you. Where is he now?”
“Called into a meeting with Hekon and the other unemployed topside drakes.” As far as I knew, only Auryn had an actual profession in Lemuria besides being topside. Cyra was trying to retire, but everyone else had been laid off.
Auryn’s brow knit tighter, and his tone took on a displeased edge. “I see.”
“What else was he supposed to do? I don’t need someone to sit around and stare at me.”
“He could havebeen here,” Auryn said with bite in his tone.
Well, sure, hecouldhave been but... what were we actually talking about?
Auryn growled and jerked his head towards our view of West and the harbor. “This is not a good start.”
It sounded like a great start to me. The dragons having any sense of urgency and jumping right to it wasgreat. Terrifying, becauseurgentdragons were also unpredictable, semi-panicked dragons, but also great. “Untangling those archives from Atlantis isthemost important thing right now.”
Auryn yanked back around to face me. A tic had taken up residence on one side of his jaw, and his bronze skin seemed to have a little more gold to it, while something in the back of my brain processed the magic welling up off his wrists as the honey and liquid light that he was made of started to shape to his will.
My magic tingled in response. Clouds sweeping and tumbling. No. That was too majestic. My magic was a bunch of fluffy Malamute puppies tumbling towards the camera. Just scooting right along, so chaotic and floofy, falling over things, rolling, getting back up.
Beat my magic being like a panda. Pandas were too stupid to live.
Auryn seemed to drift closer, liquid and gas at the same time. Or...plasma. Or a Bose-Einstein condensate. “No, Helena. Keepingyousafe is the most important thing.”
“How was he supposed tokeep me safe? He can’t go up to the cosmos and be like hey, cosmos, could youstop being a dick?”
Auryn actually seethed. “He can behere. With you. He could have told Hekon something had come up. Maren cameveryclose to killing you, and you spent weeks recovering and being too weak to deal with him, and now we’re right back where we started.”
“We’re not where we started. He’s here in Lemuria and talking to me.”
“That’s the bare minimum standard,” Auryn snapped. “I can feel the recency of your magical spasm. Do you remember sitting on Hekon’s couch clinging to sanity? How you screamed? And screamed? Andscreamed? I remember. Akoni does. And I remember how he wasn’t here for that, and Ibeggedhim to come to you. Now there’s been another incident, and instead of staying close by, he’s found an excuse to stay away.”
“I’m not an invalid. I don’t needminding.”
He darkened with brewing anger. “When someone has a seizure, you do not leave them unattended as soon as they come out of it. You stay with them for several hours as aprecaution.”
“As you can see, I’m fine. And Mahon and Dekka are here.”
“Weare your consorts. Your roost-parents doingourjob is mortifying.”
The Nine Dead Gods on a cracker. Auryn needed to lay off the salt. “Then you’d be happy to know Mahon gave Keon a hard time about not being around.”
Auryn’s anger pulled back. “Mahondid?”
“Yes.”
“Then Keon is fresh out of excuses. The only thing that might be worse isDekkasaying something, and I intend to not let that happen.”
I didn’t have the energy for this, and I didn’twantto have the energy for this. “It’s all getting better, though. I don’t feel like everything is trying to pull me apart any longer. I think I kept falling into the space between heartbeats. Or maybe I just wasn’t molted enough to exist in the firmament.”
“Firmament?”
