All thoughts instantly fled, however, as Persis pulled a release cord, and they dropped toward the sea. Justen felt his stomach leap into his throat. He clutched at the silk hugging him from all sides, its thin weave seeming too insubstantial to hold him. Near his feet, the sea mink lay calmly, and Persis squealed with delight as they zipped down, down, down, gliding through the air, silk billowing out behind them like the sail on a ship. The water rushed toward them, deep blue and closer than he would have liked, until he was almost sure he could reach down and touch it, then the line leveled and they flew across the water like a sea bird skimming for fish.
“Hang on,” said Persis a tad breathless. “There’s a bit of a jolt at the end.”
“What?” Justen asked, then was thrown violently forward as the hammock caught on a block at the end of the wire. The bottom swung up, throwing him back again, right into Persis’s lap. Slipstream squeaked in protest.
“Well, hello there,” she said coyly, brushing her bare fingers through the bristly strands of his hair. Her smile was broad and inviting, and his left arm had somehow gotten entangled all the way under her skirt. He scrambled up and tumbled out of the hammock, apologizing while inwardly berating himself for not hanging on a little tighter while Persis dropped him off a cliff face.
“You didn’t hurt me, darling.” She shot him a grin and slid out of the folds of silk herself, as Justen looked around, trying desperately to silence the parts of his brain engaged in deducing which particular swath of her leg he’d been pressed up against. They were standing on a tiny patch of moss and sand that looked to be the only real land on the length of the narrow, rocky tide breaker leading out from the cliffs. Nearby was a stone shack. The cliffs rose over them, huge and nearly vertical. He followed the line of rocks back to where it met the mainland and spotted a minuscule, steep set of stairs carved into the rock.
“Is that how we’re supposed to get back?” He nodded to the path.
She chuckled. “Don’t be silly. I’ll call for a boat.” She peeled off her wristlock and, moments later, a flutternote flitted off her palm and was caught by the wind. “I told them to come in an hour. That’ll give us plenty of time.”
“For what?”
Persis grabbed his hand. “For me to show you why they call it Scintillans.”
She pulled him along the narrow path to the shack, then disappeared inside. A moment later, she tossed a pair of dark blue swim trunks at him. “If you go around the shack to the east side, you’re less likely to be seen from the fishing village. But,” she said, wiggling her eyebrows, “I can’t make any promises.”
He looked at the dark blue trunks in his hands. “We’re going swimming?”
Persis poked her head out of the shack. From what he could see, she was no longer dressed. “Please tell me they haven’t outlawed that in Galatea, too.”
“I can swim.”
“Good.” Back in she went.
Perhaps a swim would help clear his mind. He’d been envying Slipstream in the sanitarium bath. By the time Justen had changed his clothes, Persis was lounging on a rock, basking in the coral glow of the setting sun. Her suit, also dark blue, was two pieces—a simple band knotted over her breasts and a brief bottom covered with a translucent blue scarf. It was the plainest thing he’d ever seen her wear. Justen wondered idly whose bathing trunks he was wearing, or if the Blake family kept a stash of blue suits in their shack—just in case.
As soon as she saw him, she popped up and onto the sand. Her hair was still mostly down, the mass of yellow and white curls and braids and locks twisted in a loose knot at the nape of her neck. For a moment, he could pretend she was like any other girl he’d known growing up. Her skin practically glowed in the slanted sunlight. She must know what a tempting sight she made, there on the rock. She must know it, because she had never concerned herself with anything more important in all her silly, shallow life. It was vital to keep such things in mind, before he totally forgot the real nature of their relationship. It was fake. All fake.
She held out her bare hand, and he saw the flash of gold from her palmport.
That should help some.
“Hurry!” she called. “We’ve got to get there before the sun sets.” And again she took off, down the rocks to a tiny, shockingly clear-bottomed cove nestled at the base of the cliff. She plunged into the water and Justen followed her to the shoreline, bracing himself for the cold sea.
But he was surprised, for the water was as warm as a bath. The cove must be a natural geothermal pool. He sunk into the water up to his chest, sighing in pleasure. Though both islands were largely powered by the geothermal energy derived from the volcano, and Justen knew of several thermal pools inland in Galatea, it was rare to find a natural sea cove such as this—protected enough from the tides for the water to seem warmer where it emerged from the heated earth.
Persis paddled across the cove, and he followed her, noting how the sun must be very close to the horizon now, as the surface of the sea had turned to molten gold. Persis had reached the edge of the cliff and had situated herself on a ledge that seemed to have been carved out of the rock wall. A moment later he joined her, settling into the seat and letting his arms float before him in the warm water.
“I could sleep right here,” he said, surprised to find it was the truth. Perhaps his all-nighter was finally catching up to him.
“It is tempting,” Persis agreed, waving her hands through the water and watching gold drip from her fingers. “Of course, you’d drown. And wouldn’t that be a tragedy? A celebrated young medic, a darling of Galatea, young, clever, handsome—struck down before his time. . . .”
More like struck down before he could ruin any more lives. He grimaced. What right did he have to relax in a geothermal pool while the refugees suffered in the sanitarium, while prisoners were tortured in Galatea? There was a rule that medics had abided by since time immemoriaclass="underline" first, do no harm.
He needed to fix his mistake. There was nothing more important than that right now. He’d sleep for a few hours, then head back to the lab.
Ahead of them, to the west, the sun melted into the sea, and already, the dusk had gathered here in the shadows on either side of the cove cliffs. “So why do they call it Scintillans?” he asked, more to change the subject than anything else.
“Wait.”
He waited. It wasn’t difficult to do, snug on the rocks with the warm seawater all around him. Persis didn’t speak for once, and when he looked, she wasn’t consulting her palmport, either, just sitting and watching the sun set, her expression devoid of its usual false cheer. Her hair was wet and plastered to her head, making her look like an actual mortal for once, as well as the two years younger than Justen that she really was. He wondered what she might have been like had she not been born an aristo in Albion. Like his sister Remy, perhaps. She wasn’t stupid, just unconcerned with any weighty matters.
Then he thought of what she’d be like had she been born an aristo in Galatea. How she’d probably even now be Reduced, imprisoned, working herself to death in a field, her silly giggle extinguished like the mischievous spark in her cinnamon eyes.
And it would be his fault.
He was staring. He stopped, and returned his attention to the sun. Persis Blake was beautiful, but she wasn’t a sunset.
A moment later, the sun sank below the surface. Justen made a hissing sound before he could catch himself.
But Persis was already grinning. “What was that?”
He shrugged, sending the water into eddies around his shoulders. “Something my sister and I always do, ever since we were kids. When the ocean puts out the sun, it hisses, like water on a hot pan.”