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CHAPTERTWENTY-SIX
Cam
It’s beenthirteen days since the topic came up at karaoke night, but for some reason, any time I try to talk to Micah or Zac about getting him back into the dating market, they shut me down. It’s almost like Zac doesn’t want to meet someone amazing and be stupid happy.
Weird.
I push the thought aside. There’ll be plenty of time for me to help Zac after I move here and the village becomes a popular destination for visitors of all species… which is going to happen soon, because today’s the day I finish the puzzle.
Today.Today.
I knew last week how much longer it would take me, but I deliberately didn’t tell anyone because I didn’t want to start a tidal wave of excitement. Instead, I kept it to myself—and Micah, because I tell him everything now—and kept working. Even when Ronan spent three days with us in the cave last week, cataloging all the components and watching me work, I didn’t tell him. I’m pretty sure he guessed how close I was, though, given he could see my progress each day.
But when we left the cave last night, I knew it would be today and that a lot of people would want to be here. So I told Garrett.
He freaked out. “Tomorrow?” he kept saying. “Like in twelve hours, tomorrow?”
“Probably closer to nineteen or twenty,” I corrected. “I don’t think I’ll be done until early afternoon.”
He took that and ran with it, understanding without me needing to tell him that I didn’t want a dozen or more people watching my every move the whole morning.
Instead, they’ll start arriving after lunch. The village council and someone from CSG—Garrett thinks probably Alistair and Gideon. More people will come later, when the door is open and Ronan’s going through what’s behind it, but Garrett’s promised to keep things low-key today.
Which means I can work mostly in peace this morning. It’s not as peaceful as usual, though—Micah, Asher, Garrett, Zac, and Ronan are stacking the now-empty crates along the side wall of the cave. That’s where they were in the photos I saw right after the cave was discovered. It makes the cave seem a lot bigger—not that it didn’t already feel huge—and will allow us to actually open the door.
I stop to watch them work. Zac, who was the sunshiny one when I first met them all but has lost his good humor these last few weeks, is keeping up a steady stream of muttered curses. He’s also avoiding Ronan like it’s his job, which makes me sad. Ronan’s been trying really hard since Garrett talked to him. He even made a point of visiting the people he’d interviewed and apologizing for his mood. He told them he’d been dealing with some stuff in his life that had left him unprepared to move out here on such short notice, but he hadn’t meant to take that out on everyone else, and that he thought the village was one of the friendliest and most inviting places to live that he’d seen in a long time. Personally, I think that last bit was overkill, seeing as how the people he said it to were trying to get him kicked out of the village, but they bought it, and combined with his new efforts to be more social, it’s made a difference.
Micah glances over at me and winks, and I grin and wave at him. We’re both super excited right now. Once the door is open, we can start planning what comes next for us. I’ll move to Hortplatz, and we can slowly take our relationship to the next level. It’s given us both a boost of enthusiasm for today, and seeing how excited we already were, that makes us positively giddy. I take a few more seconds to watch his muscles flex as he and Asher maneuver another crate over to the winch. They’re much lighter empty, but still awkward and unwieldy.
I get back to work, focusing on fitting components into elements. The puzzle still occasionally likes to throw me a curveball and mix things up, but for the most part, I know what pieces go where and how they need to be moved. Now, especially, with so few pieces left, there aren’t a lot of potential combinations with each step. I’m working in the bottom right corner, so the cherry picker that was my best friend for the past few weeks has been moved to the staging area of the cave, out of my way, leaving an unimpeded view of my work.
It's impressive.
That’s not me bragging. I know that I’m just bringing someone else’s genius to life—and she really was a genius. But if the door was a marvel of engineering before, it’s a downright work of art now. The relief image of the dragon, wings spread, is spectacular, right down to the cheeky smirk on its face. I wonder if it’s a self-portrait? I asked Ronan, but he said he’d never met the designer and didn’t know.
I pick up the pace a little. I’m so close to the end now, following one last spiral of the tail. In fact… I stop, make myself put down the component I was about to place, and take a step back.
“Something wrong?” Micah steps up beside me, lightly sweaty, and I turn into him, plastering myself against his big body.
“Nope. But there’s only about half an hour of work left, and I thought I should probably wait for everyone to get here.”
He looks up at the wall, at the progress. “I can’t believe it’s nearly over.”
“Nearly done,” I correct. “Not over. Once it’s open, I want to experiment to see if pieces can be removed without closing it.”
His familiar chuckle washes over me. “I can see you’re going to be playing with this for a long time.”
A long time here with Micah? You fucking bet.
* * *
I can feel allthe eyes on me as I solve the last of the puzzle. At first they watched me in deathly silence, but the weight of that was so bad that I asked them to please talk. So there’s a quiet murmur of conversation, at least.
Those who haven’t visited since I started working—which is most people—were shocked and delighted to see how the door looks now. The dragon wing leader, Brandt, who surprised us all by tagging along with Gideon, actually clapped his hands in joy. “This is extraordinary!” he exclaimed. “I should have known she’d find a way to turn one art form into two.”
He's been talking to Ronan, and I hope they’re working on a way to resolve whatever it is that’s making Ronan so unhappy.
But that’s not what I’m supposed to be focused on. I slot what ostensibly should be the last piece into the last element, twist it, and slide. It locks into place just like all the ones before.
