Page 21 of The Demons in the Deep: Extended Edition
“Yes, yes.” Kestra swung her legs off the bed. “The privy is down the hall if you need it. Oh, and tomorrow we’re going to a tailor. Flay says we both need fashionable dresses for the contestants’ ball tomorrow night.”
Mai’s stomach flipped. She usually dressed in simple clothes that were easy to clean, because she tended to burn holes in her shirts and spill chemicals on her skirts or trousers; but she’d always had a secret love for finery. The strange striking fashions she’d seen around the city fascinated her. A ball—with a gown and dancing? Delight swelled inside her so tightly she could hardly draw breath around it.
“A ball,” she whispered. “Really?”
Kestra smiled, but Mai saw a hint of dread mixed with her cousin’s eagerness.
“Flay will protect you from the Magnate,” Mai said.
Kestra shook her head. “He can’t. You didn’t see his father today—you didn’t hear him.”
“You told me what he said.”
“But the Magnate’s presence, Mai—his dominance, his violence—” Kestra shuddered. “I’m afraid of him, and I’m scared for Flay. He won’t tell me much about this competition. Said he needed to talk to Jazadri first. He promised he would explain everything soon.”
“I want to be part of that conversation,” Mai said. “I was angry with you for leaving me out of the meeting today—and then I suppose I forgot to be angry, because of all the wonderful, wonderful things in this city.”
“Flay was right to leave you out of it,” Kestra said. “He has navigated these waters before. We have to trust him.”
Mai tilted her head. “That’s hard for you, isn’t it?”
“It is. But I chose to leave Kiken and come here with him, so I need to respect that this is his home, and he understands how things work here. Though I think he feels more at home on theWind’s Favoror in The Three Cherries than he does in Stragnoag. He was so cheerful and sweet this afternoon when he was showing me around, but I could tell he was forcing it.”
Kestra’s shoulders slumped, and she looked so dejected that Mai impulsively crossed the room, sat beside her, and squeezed her shoulders. “You should go to his room tonight, Kestra. Help him forget what happened today, just for a little while.”
“I don’t think the elderly gentleman at the desk would approve of an unwed couple sharing a room,” Kestra said wryly. “Apparently this is a more respectable establishment than others in the vicinity.”
“Like you and Flay haven’t sneaked around under the noses of disapproving authority figures before.” Mai gave her cousin a little shake.
“My poor mother.” Kestra giggled.
“Must be a wonderful feeling if it’s worth all that trouble.” The minute Mai let the words out, she wished she could put them back. She hadn’t meant to say that; she was too hungry and tired to think carefully—oh, sucking whelks. She was in for it now.
Kestra leaned back and stared at her. “A wonderful feeling? Mai—we spoke of attraction on the ship, but I thought surely you—haven’t you touched yourself before?”
“I tried a couple times,” Mai said tightly. “It was boring. Nothing happened.”
“Oh.” Kestra averted her eyes. “Well, I—so you’ve never—had a burst of pleasure, like a strong, satisfying kind of pleasure? A climax?”
“I’m not sure exactly what you mean, but I’m going to say no.” Mai’s face felt as hot as the Kiken sea-wall on a summer afternoon. “And I’ve never felt the wetness you joke about sometimes, the arousal. It’s okay, you can say it. I’m wrong, and broken.”
“No!” Kestra gripped her hand. “Not at all.”
“But I am. Everyone feels these things except me, Kestra—everyone. Even animals. Creatures of all kinds have these urges, and with me they are simply—missing. I’m cold inside.”
“You are anything but cold! You are one of the most loving, generous, passionate people I know,” Kestra said stoutly. “You are perfect, exactly as you are. You’re lucky, in fact, not to have that distraction from the work you love.”
Mai swallowed and pinched her lips together until she could control their trembling. “But what if Iwantthe distraction? I mean, sometimes I don’t, but sometimes I wish I could feel it, as you do with Flay.”
Kestra wrapped both arms around her. “You might, one day. Who knows? Inclinations change, like constellations. Longings surge and recede like the tide. The person you are today may not be the one you are tomorrow, and that is all right. You are a treasure, and I love you.” She kissed Mai’s forehead firmly. “Now before we both start crying, we should get some food.”
The roar inside the pub reminded Mai of the ocean during a storm. She let Kestra shoulder her way in first, following in her wake. Almost immediately, Baz shouted to them from a long table in the back. “Oi! Over here!”
But Kestra had stopped, staring across the broad bar into the open kitchen beyond, where an entire wall of gleaming ovens and crackling fireplaces vented steam and scents, where sprawling tables were littered with crockery, brass pots, bunches of herbs, and hunks of cheese. Knives flashed in skilled hands, floury fists pounded lumps of dough, and sharp voices called out orders or requested ingredients. Atop one of the tables a wheel turned, spitting out long noodles which an under-cook wound around flour-dusted arms before scurrying away to drop the noodles in a pot of boiling water.
Mai had never seen such a kitchen, but it did not call to her the way it summoned Kestra.
“Ho there, cousin.” Mai poked her shoulder. “The boys are waiting.”
