Gathering her own thoughts was a disaster. Organizing them was worse, and the aid of lined paper contributed little. A desk not her own did nothing to ease her distress. Azia’s hand was outright cramping. In a way, it wasn’t a feeling so unlike that of home, by which the looming threat of Dissemination had so often kept her awake. On the opposite side of Tenaveris, she found one familiar comfort between Institutes so different. Granted, her deadline was self-imposed.

  She’d lost track of how long she’d been here, in truth. It had been days, at the very least. What notes Azia had taken mentally didn’t translate well in writing. Recounting what she knew of Seleth already, on top of that, was miserable. It was her fault for offering full disclosure to Rae, neatly summarized and carefully penned. The sheer quantity of scribbles and stray pages littering the wood was almost obscene, whether or not every last document was necessary. Really, she hadn’t realized how much she’d gathered on Seleth until now.

  If nothing else, she could shirk further wrist pain in the form of extensive explanations to Yvette’s face. It was one relief, in light of her scheduled return. She very much wasn’t looking forward to the issue of threefold company on one bike again.

  For how much she would inevitably protest separation from Klare, Azia had half a mind to wonder if Kassy would extend her stay of her own accord. Whatever came of that was Klare’s problem. Azia’s sole concerns rested with an anomaly, as would always be the case.

  She’d ended up writing “anomaly” in place of finishing her sentence. Azia kicked herself over it, swatting at unwelcome lead with the eraser. It smeared. She grimaced. Blessed by what moonlight peeked through the curtains above, Azia couldn’t blame fatigue yet. If she had to draft the report twice, she was going to scream.

  Whoever had the audacity to knock on her door in the depths of night was rapidly pushing her towards the same. She resisted the urge to cradle her head in her hands, settling on a heavy sigh. “Yes?”

  They didn’t bother answering--with words, anyway. Action took precedence. The click that came with a turning knob outright scared her, and Azia jumped in her seat at the sudden intrusion. It was rude, for one thing. More than that, it was surprising. She’d somewhat expected Klare, given the lack of decency. Azia raised an eyebrow.

  To be fair, he’d never been brimming with tact, either. Seleth didn’t hesitate to make himself comfortable in the slightest, pulling the door shut behind him and embracing the warmth of a candlelit room. “Nice atmosphere. I like it.”

  “You can’t just come in here,” Azia grumbled. “Why are you still awake?”

  “Why are you still awake?” he teased, flopping backwards unceremoniously onto her bed.

  Seleth bounced in the process, creaking mattress springs already serving to aggravate Azia. If she was distracted before, then his presence alone risked derailing her thoughts altogether.

  Azia’s neck ached with the effort of peering over her shoulder. “Get off of there!” she hissed.

  He only rested his head atop his arms, far too at ease in an abode not his own. “You’re not using it. And it’s soft.”

  “Seleth, it’s late. We’re leaving early tomorrow. You need to go to bed,” she chided.

  Seleth propped one knee up on the mattress, crossing his legs comfortably. He was content to drink in the ceiling, his words drifting aimlessly across the room. “Can’t sleep.”

  Azia’s face softened, whether or not he could see it. “Any particular reason?”

  “Dunno,” he said with a shrug. “Plus, I was lonely. Had a feeling you’d be up. You don’t sleep much, do you?”

  “I sleep plenty,” she muttered, returning to a neglected journal.

  Silence was a catalyst for scribbles, fruitful or otherwise. Azia appreciated it, mostly. Her awareness of his company was still a mild distraction, at best. It was less than it could’ve been, and she was definitely forming words of merit. She was forming too many, really, for what she knew of how long it took him to shut up.

  Again, Azia strained to look behind her. “Don’t you dare fall asleep. Are you serious?”

  Seleth’s eyes were closed. That was already suspicious. When Azia saw him grin, lodged in the same restful position, she could at least find solace in his consciousness. “I’m awake.”

  “If you pass out on my bed, I’m going to kill you.”

  With eyes still shut, his grin grew yet brighter. “Don’t mind me. Keep doing what you’re doing. I like all of the writing sounds. They’re very relaxing.”

  She frowned. “I’m serious.”

  “Whatcha writing, anyway?” Seleth asked.

  Tentatively, Azia returned her attention to her messy excuse for research. To her credit, it was beginning to resemble something legible. “It’s for Rae. It’s for all of them, really. It’s a report about everything related to…you, I suppose.”

  “Oh, yeah?”

  He sounded happy enough about it. Azia could swear his ego was audible, and it was just barely enough to summon a smirk. She was relieved that Seleth couldn’t see it. “Everything you didn’t mention in Dissemination, plus all of the Precipitation stuff. This way, they can investigate whatever they want on their end, if they choose to. We don’t have to keep coming back. Long-distance contact should be enough, I think.”

  “I wouldn’t mind coming back,” she heard. “It’s nice here. I had a good time.”

  “It…went better than I thought it would,” Azia confessed softly. “I don’t really think the circumstances left a lot of room for disagreement.”

  “You mean because everyone was too busy trying not to die?”

  She just barely stifled a laugh. She hated that he almost earned one at all. “Not what I said.”

  “I mean, am I wrong?”

  Azia paused. “No,” she finally conceded. “That’s not the point. Like I said, the alchemists and the researchers don’t always agree on everything.”

  “You made researchers sound a lot scarier,” Seleth mumbled. “Some of them were pretty cool. You and Klare get along well, right?”

  She was fine with submitting to a smile. “Yeah. She’s more of an exception, though. I’m not sure how she feels about you, but she brought that on herself.”

  Azia half-expected him to tease an absent researcher. If he had, she probably would’ve gotten something out of it. When Seleth passed Klare by entirely, it was surprising. “There’s Cailin,” he said instead.

  Nodding was a reflex, invisible as it was to him. It wasn’t worth scolding herself over. “I owe him a lot. He gave me the details of the model he was working on, actually. He said I could take it back to the Institute, at this point. I really can’t thank him enough.”

  “Are you…sure we can’t come back here?” Seleth asked, his voice just barely touched by something solemn. “I kinda liked hanging out with him. And the stars. You guys don’t have an observatory at the Alchemist Institute, right?”

  One of those questions was easier to answer than the other. Azia still did what she could to deal with both. “We don’t have an observatory, but I do have a telescope. It’s smaller, to be fair. It’s portable, though. We could…go outside, and I could show you how to use it, if you want. As for Cailin, we’ll figure something out. Maybe we’ll find time to come back, at some point.”

  Inevitably, she would have to, anyway. As to whatever Cailin was processing on his end, she was sure to unravel it alongside him in detail, eventually. Even now, Azia hadn’t fully processed the weight of his hypothesis. For as grand as her dreams were, Seleth’s face typically reined them in. Whether or not he had the same effect on Cailin remained to be seen.

  “I’d love that, honestly,” Seleth said. “The star thing, too. I’m gonna hold you to that, alright? You better show me as soon as we get back.”

  Azia chuckled. “You really like the stars, don't you?”

  “They’re nice. They make me happy.”

  He deserved that much. “Then I’ll do what I can.”

  Lead kissed paper once more, and she got her silence back. Azia kept her smile, faint and warm in line with flickering candlelight. Stars were the least she could repay him with, really. At this point, she was slowly becoming convinced that she could never repay Seleth at all. To ask more of him felt almost wrong, whether or not it was what he’d agreed to.

  Azia was already four pages deep, flexing her aching fingers as she battled her way through a fifth. Whatever else she would come to learn of him would only make the same feat harder. It would leave her debt swelling forever, probably. That, too, she’d have to solve someday.

  “Hey, Azia?”

  She lost her silence, hasty strokes mingling with his voice instead. She didn’t hate it. “Yes?”

  “Do you wanna play that game again? The one with the back-and-forth questions? I get one, you get one, all that fun stuff?”

  Azia scoffed, never stilling her pencil. “It wasn’t a game. You know you can just ask me anything, right?”

  “This is more fun, though. I like when it’s even.”

  Her smile felt as natural as ever. “Fine. Which one of us is starting?”

  “You can go first,” Seleth offered.

  She could hear the grin in his voice. In a way, his enjoyment of a concept once solely convenient was endearing. She’d had questions waiting to begin with. It took Azia a moment to line them up, plucking them out of her head one by one. “Your eyes. Sometimes, when you use your water, they glow. Is it…when you’re fighting?”

  “They do?”

  It wasn’t the answer she’d expected, in truth. “Yeah. I’ve seen it a few times. It stops when you stop. It doesn’t happen when you make your water normally, though. I’ve only ever seen it when you fight.”

  Seleth paused. He was blunt, eventually. “Huh. Never noticed. Never felt it, or anything like that. Learned somethin’ new today, I guess. Does it look cool?”

  “Is that your question?”

  He laughed softly. “Don’t take my turn away. That’s not fair.”

  “Then pick something,” Azia chided.

  She wasn’t the only one who took time to consider. “How’s your face?”

  That, too, was unexpected, if not more so. Her writing slowed, and she resisted the urge to raise her palm to a blistering cheek. It no longer throbbed, nor burned, and that was a plus. Still, pillows weren’t kind to her skin. Even her scarf brushing against the wound stung, on occasion. Azia didn’t dare check mirrors more than she needed to. Something about him acknowledging it at all left her self-conscious.

  “It’s…getting better,” she said, angling her back towards him just the slightest bit more.

  “You got that from the Thunderstorm, right?”

  Azia sighed. “It’s like I said. You’re not supposed to come in contact with Precipitation, if you can help it. At that tier, I’m not surprised this happened.”

  “Does it hurt?”

  “A little.”

  Seleth was quiet, briefly. “I’m sorry.”

  She winced. “It’s not your fault. If anything, it’s mine. I should’ve been more careful. There’s medicine I’m taking for it, anyway. I’ll be okay, I promise.”

  “Still.”

  The silence he settled into was far less comfortable. Azia fought to shatter it before it thickened. “My turn.”

  “Try me.”

  If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.

  She’d conquered the fifth page. She assailed a sixth. “How far does your water reach?”

  “What do you mean?”

  There was no real point in gesturing with her pencil, given that she was facing away from him to begin with. Regardless, Azia waved the tip towards the ceiling. “Is there a point where it…leaves your control, I guess? How far can you get it to go before you can’t affect it anymore? I remember you went pretty high when you caught Klare’s glaive, so I wasn’t sure where the limit was. If there’s a limit.”

  And again, Seleth was quiet. He was quiet for long enough that Azia wondered if he’d heard her at all--or if he’d ignored her altogether. Had it been the latter, she would’ve thrown the pencil. She never got the chance to check, and the slightest squeaks of the mattress springs were new. For whatever reason, they came with bubbles, soft and delicate.

  They were distant, at first. All too soon, they were strikingly near, close enough to fizzle in her ear and graze her scarf. Somehow, the tiny splash of blue in her peripheral vision never managed to soak the fabric. It was precise, clean, skillfully maneuvered by a touch she couldn’t see. Azia felt the chill that stung her face long before she’d even processed what it was--let alone witnessed it with her eyes at all. Gentle purity cupped her cheek and swallowed her wounds, placid atop damaged skin.

  It never ceased. She held fast to her watery bandage, shockingly pleasant versus every cream and ointment she could concoct. The way her free hand rose to brush against the little tide was instinctive. There, too, she treasured the refreshing cold that bit her fingertips. Azia was perfectly still, lest she turn her head and surrender the only medicine that mattered.

  “It goes pretty far,” she heard softly.

  There was a moment in which she feared her creeping smile would compromise his waters. In a way, the gesture was strangely intimate. For once, Azia didn’t mind. “Thanks.”

  “Wish I could do more.”

  “This is plenty,” she reassured. “You don’t have to, anyway.”

  “I want to. I can do this regularly, if it would help.”

  Azia didn’t dare shake her head. “It really is fine, I promise. It’ll go away soon. I’m not gonna make you hold it there forever.”

  Seleth still did, regardless. Part of her appreciated that much. “My turn, right?”

  “Sure.”

  She heard the quiet squeaking of mattress springs once more. If Seleth had managed to make himself comfortable while maintaining her fluid gauze, Azia was all the more impressed. “Are you ever afraid? When you fight the Rain?”

  Azia bit her lip. “Yes.”

  “You don’t act like it,” he said.

  She shrugged carefully. “I don’t have the luxury to. I’m always scared. Everyone is.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with that. Can’t say I blame you. I’m just…surprised, I guess.”

  “Why?”

  Seleth paused. “You’re so damn fearless all the time. It’s hard to imagine you bein’ afraid of anything. You jumped right in with that Thunderstorm. Didn’t even hesitate.”

  She didn’t mean to laugh as loudly as she did. “Seleth, there’s tons of things I’m afraid of. Is that really how it looks from the outside?”

  “Damn right it does. I’ve been enjoying the hell out of it. I’m reeeally weak for confident women.”

  Azia’s grin betrayed her scolding. Once more, she was glad he couldn’t see. “Shut it.”

  “I say what I mean.”

  “Which you should stop doing, frankly.”

  Again, his laugh was soft in contrast to hers. Eventually, his voice settled into something solemn. “I think I like that you’re afraid every now and then, too, though. Dunno how to explain why.”

  “I’m not perfect, Seleth,” Azia said.

  “I know. That’s not a bad thing. I…prefer it that way.”

  It was an odd sentiment. Azia didn’t press him on it, nor did she ask permission for a turn. She focused on paper as much as was possible with water clinging cautiously to her face. “When it was Raining earlier, you said you were trying to prove a point, right?”

  Again, Seleth laughed, albeit gentler. “I was wondering when you’d ask that.”

  “So? What was it?” Azia pressed.

  The pride in his voice wasn’t subtle in the slightest, soft as it was. “You’re always damn near killing yourself trying to protect me. Trying to protect everyone, really. I…wanted to show you that I could do the same thing. It goes both ways.”

  Azia resisted the urge to turn around, lest she compromise helpful waters. “What do you mean?”

  “If things get messy, I can protect you, too,” Seleth explained, just as soft. “I want to. I can stand up for myself, and I can stand up for whoever needs help. Just proved that pretty well. You gotta give me the chance, though. Trust me when I say I can do it.”

  Azia clung to what silence snuck between them time after time, straddling a smile and a sigh. “We can’t afford to lose you. We can’t afford for anything to happen to you, or for you to get hurt. You understand that, right?”

  “I know. I’ll be okay. Like I said, you have to trust me. I trusted you when you told me to stay back while it was Raining.”

  “Liar. That is the exact opposite of what you did during the Thunderstorm.”

  A third fragile laugh was a catalyst for Azia to suppress her own. “But I still pulled it off. I did a damn good job, too. You know what I’m trying to say.”

  In truth, Seleth’s company made for a comfortable distraction from monotony--loath as she was to admit it. Azia hadn’t noticed her paper was nearly full until after the fact. In the midst of emotional hesitation, her pencil moved by itself. “I’ll think about it,” she offered half-heartedly.

  “You’ll let me fight the Rain with you?”

  “I’ll think about it,” Azia repeated, sharper. “Listen to me when I speak.”

  His tone was split neatly between defensive and concerningly satisfied. She blamed her wording. “My bad.”

  She’d lost track of how many pages she’d tackled. Chilling blues still hugged her cheek, and she considered adding them to her report. She somewhat regretted not counting how long he’d maintained his graciously-given tides. It had been well over fifteen minutes, at least. Pressing as to the maximum duration of his manifestations was an option. Granted, it wasn’t her turn.

  “You’re up.”

  “Right.”

  Azia somewhat wondered if it ever hurt, let alone ached. Where skillful fingers moved, effort undoubtedly followed--his dismissals be damned. If extensive streams and sparkling mists grew to strain Seleth’s hands, she wouldn’t have been surprised. That, too, was worth asking, for how he endeavored to shield her wounds all the same. She added it to her list of questions, patiently in wait behind those of his own. For now, scratching lead overtook mutual speech.

  “What’s the Religious Institute?”

  Her pencil slipped from her fingers. Where it rolled off of the desk and fell to the floor, Azia’s stomach did the same.

  She didn’t speak. For a moment, she didn’t move at all. Her eyes trailed forsaken graphite, bound to the carpet beside her heart. Azia could hear her own shaky breaths. She prayed Seleth couldn’t hear them in turn.

  “I heard Cailin say it.”

  He could, possibly, if he had to press. It didn’t make it any easier to level them out. At least Azia’s hands weren’t shaking along with them this time. At least the question was localized, imprisoned within four walls and away from prying ears. Azia still hated that it was on his lips at all.

  “Azia?”

  The soft shuffling against the covers behind her was a catalyst for broken waters, fizzling out along her skin. It was a strange sensation. Seleth left only a cool mist grazing her cheek on the way out, her personal bandage sloughing into sparkling nothing in her peripheral vision. In any other circumstance, the sight would’ve been pleasant, and Azia would’ve regretted the loss of his distant touch more. Right now, she’d be lucky if she could find words for him at all.

  For a moment, Azia only stared at what ample data she’d managed to spill onto paper. Every sentence blurred together, regardless. Knowing him, it wasn’t something escapable by silence alone.

  “Bad subject?” Seleth asked quietly.

  That was an understatement. It was almost enough to make her laugh over something darker, for once.

  Azia exhaled heavily. With more mental effort than it should’ve taken, she threw one arm over the back of her chair, turning to him in full. The gaze she found was softer than she’d thought it would be. In lieu of the ceiling, Seleth gave her his complete attention, propped up on his elbows and resigned to silence far less comfortable.

  It still took time. Her words, when they came, were just as soft as the worry on his face. “This stays in here. Okay? I don’t want to talk about it outside of this room.”

  Seleth watched her in the same silence, briefly. Eventually, he nodded. “Yeah.”

  Azia couldn’t find the drive to meet his eyes, and they fell to the carpet. “Remember how I said there’s…different Divisions? Different approaches as to how to fix what happened?”

  “For getting the water back, right?”

  “Yes. Obviously, you know the alchemists. We do alchemy. The researchers do research. We have our own methodologies, but we’re aiming for the same thing.”

  “I remember.”

  Azia bit her lip. Even the words on her tongue felt bitter, for who she’d be sharing them with. “There’s a third one. They’re called the Religious Division. To say that their methods are experimental is putting it nicely. They think that the Sunburst was some sort of…divine retribution, I guess. I don’t know for what, and I don’t want to know. In the same vein, they think that devotion is what’ll fix everything. The ways that they try to achieve that are…”

  She trailed off. Gentle or not, Seleth didn’t let her. “Weird?”

  “Disgusting,” Azia interjected. “Again, I don’t know much about it besides what I’ve been told. I know there’s sacrifices. There’s rituals. Self-punishment--a lot of it. We do our experiments. They do theirs, too, in their own way. If they’ve got limits, they’re not obvious.”

  She shifted awkwardly in her seat. “I don’t even want to know what they think of the alchemists,” Azia muttered. “I promise you, no one thinks a damn good thing of them. They use our greenhouses. Our reservoirs. Everything we made. They don’t have a choice. If they hate us, then that’s their problem. They’re hypocrites. We’re the only reason they’re alive.”

  The discomfort in Seleth’s voice was mutual, in some ways. She had a feeling that his own was at least slightly unique. “And they really call themselves that? That’s…kind of pretentious, honestly.”

  Azia never raised her head. “Alchemy is a solution. Research is a solution. Religion is, unfortunately, a solution--hence the name. I understand their logic. You’re not wrong about them, regardless.”

  That was also an understatement, to be fair. “Not really a religious person, huh?”

  “Not that way,” she countered quickly. “I respect whatever anyone else wants, and there’s nothing wrong with that. These people are an entirely different story, though. They’re not normal, Seleth. It’s not the same.”

  Seleth tilted his own head towards the carpet. When he caught Azia’s fallen gaze, he didn’t let it go. “Do you…plan to--”

  “I don’t want them anywhere near you,” she said quickly, her tone somewhat harsher than she would’ve liked. She steadied it soon enough. “I don’t…know what they would do to you. I don’t know how they would react, and I don’t want to find out. I can’t risk it, Seleth. If they ever tried to hurt you, I wouldn’t be able to live with myself.”

  “Is there anything they could help with? With me, I mean? Figuring all of this out?”

  Restraining her pointed words was getting difficult. “It’s not happening. There’s nothing they could offer that would matter. I didn’t even want you to know about this.”

  It wasn’t at all a personal sleight, and Azia had already struggled with freeing the truth for him before. Still, the tiniest flash of hurt in his eyes was notable. It stung her in return. “Why?”

  She hardly had a decent answer. The only one she could find was painfully honest. “You deserved better than that.”

  Azia wondered if he’d tease. He didn’t. Seleth didn’t so much as smile. She was relieved when she found only calm in place of the same pain, a fragile gaze matching whatever stress probably plagued her own. “Sorry.”

  If anyone deserved an apology, it was him. “Don’t be. You…didn’t do anything wrong. It’s okay.”

  A quiet once pleasant morphed into something miserable. Azia loathed it. Were it possible, she’d shatter it herself and start anew. In reality, there was no undoing what had been done. There was almost a relief that came with freeing poisonous truths, for how long she’d fought to spare him. It was still nauseating.

  “And another thing,” Azia added.

  Seleth straightened up somewhat. “Yeah?”

  “Don’t bring up the Religious Division to Kassy or Klare. Please.”

  Wide eyes be damned, he didn’t pry. For every way in which he was already a blessing, that might’ve been the greatest gift of all. “I won’t.”

  “Thank you.”

  When Azia sank into the same intolerable quiet once more, she at least found solace in a steadying heartbeat. Awkward stretching in her chair left her one pencil richer, although she doubted she’d find the focus to return to research far less malicious. She counted ten pages, and that much was mostly sufficient. Ideally, Rae would be satisfied.

  “Sorry I killed the mood,” she heard.

  “You’re fine,” Azia repeated.

  Squeaking mattress springs once more were a solid indicator of reclaimed comfort, if she had to guess. She was grateful on Seleth’s behalf. “We don’t have to keep playing if you don’t want to.”

  Azia did what she could to herd every scattered paper into a neater stack. “Again, not a game.”

  “I mean, if it’s fun, doesn’t that make it a game?”

  “That’s not how that works.”

  “Did you finish your report thing?”

  Azia tapped her pencil against the top of the stack absentmindedly. It was notably thick, and for that, she was satisfied. “I think so.”

  “What’d you say you put in there, again?” Seleth asked.

  “A bunch of stuff. Your interactions with the Rain, the discrepancies with your memory, how your water works, where you came from, what I know about your--”

  “Did you put the stuff that Ginger found?”

  Her rhythmic taps came to a halt. “What?”

  “You know, the problem with the needle, and the thing with my eyes, and all that. I mean, I’d kinda hope you’d include it. Did a whole lot for you. That woman was over there shoving her fingers up my--”

  “Oh my God, I forgot about Ginger,” Azia muttered urgently, swiping at the nearest naked sheet of paper.

  “You forgot?”

  “Look, there’s been a lot to take in, okay? You’re complicated,” she argued. Already, lead was challenging the same report yet again.

  Seleth chuckled, and it only compounded her embarrassment. “I’m an anomaly. That’s the point.”

  “Hush. I’m focusing.”

  To his credit, with or without the same muted laughter she'd grown used to, he did. It left Azia’s hand cramping again as she summoned what she could from memory alone. Her notes would come second, probably, her journal still split wide and readily accessible across the desk. Most of her trip to Raverna was fresh enough, anyway. The apothecary’s prior findings splashed onto the paper much easier than she’d expected them to.

  Azia cherished the quiet she was blessed with, free of distraction and immune to banter. She’d enjoyed what of it she’d gotten, to be fair, and she silently thanked Seleth for that much. Research was as much of a distraction as conversation. Both kept her away from any concept bordering on divine intervention.

  The moment the echoes of the discussion touched her thoughts, she was left to physically shake them out of her head. In that way, she almost wished Seleth would talk. The cycle of indecision felt annoying.

  He was too quiet, really. She’d gone at least five minutes without interruption, let alone any sounds of movement. Azia hardly bothered to look up from the paper, narrowing her eyes at written words alone. “Seleth, so help me God, you better not be asleep on my--”

  The most gentle of bubbling beat her to it. What chiding she had left fizzled out beneath that which fizzled more, abundant and yet soft all the same. Azia’s head snapped over her shoulder fast enough to hurt her neck. Ultimately, it was worth it.

  She’d never seen it actually happening before. That was her fault. Azia had never seen him fall asleep before to begin with. How he could spare her bed from soaking splendor was beyond her, as was the very concept of a boy cushioned by purity. Even with his palms languishing calmly at his sides, she was fairly certain that they were immune to effort. All of it seemed effortless, in truth.

  Where Seleth’s watery chrysalis began was debatable, frothy bubbles tangling in his hair and rolling off his sleeves. Azia had suspicions as to his back, if not at least his shoulders. Whatever left him closest to sprouting angel wings served as a solid explanation. Regardless, it was gorgeous. Every droplet was inverse, skyward bound and climbing towards the ceiling.

  So, too, did they carry him along, an unconscious anomaly lifted peacefully on budding tides. He was limp, mostly, if not visibly comfortable. Not once did Seleth stir. Even as swaddling aquamarine swelled, enveloping his arms and swallowing his legs, his breaths were level and his eyes were closed.

  The same breaths were just as delicate under the water. He rose high and sank deep, captive to a shimmering sanctuary of his own making. What began as miniscule bubbles had grown to craft perfection, rounded and placid as he drifted serenely within.

  Seleth’s peace was striking, actually, undeterred by the process in every way. The most reaction he offered was mild shifting as he curled in on himself, loosely hugging his knees as he slept. It was almost cute. More importantly, the spectacle was nothing short of miraculous.

  Azia’s eyes flickered downwards to the sheets he’d left behind. Given the origins of his blossoming waters, she’d expected at least a puddle. Utter dryness was baffling. He was baffling. That much wasn’t new.

  She was still somewhat irritated that Seleth had taken her bed--technically. For now, Azia was more preoccupied as to whether or not she could make a last-minute addition to her report. Intentional or not, he’d given her plenty more to work with.