Call of Water (Madame Tan's Freakshow #1) - Marina Simcoe Page 0,69
He woke me up at four in the morning and brought me downstairs. I was seven and so sleepy. I remember holding the soapy water in a ball in the middle of the room, trying and failing to understand where he wanted me to dump it.”
I imagined a seven-year-old Zeph in his little boy pajamas, his hair tousled from sleep, wielding his out-of-this-world power to save their basement from a flood.
“I would have loved to see that.” I smiled against his arm.
“Oh, it was long before you were born.”
“Couldn’t be that long.” I tried to concentrate through the sleepy haze settling in. “How old are you?”
“I don’t remember the exact number, but if I do the math, it should be around mid-to-late forties.”
“Forties?” I laughed, sure he had made a mistake. “Your math is terribly wrong, Zeph.”
“Not by more than a year or two. The flooding happened in the nineteen eighties. And I know I graduated high school still in the last century.”
I turned in his arms to face him.
“How long do Fae live?”
“At least five hundred years.”
“Human years?” I asked stupidly, refusing to believe what he was telling me. The sleep left me, blown away by this discovery.
“Yes. Human years. Is that a problem?”
“Don’t you see it as such?” I rose on my elbow. “How old is Lero?”
He took a moment, possibly to calculate Lero’s age. “He would be in his late eighties, early nineties.”
“Oh, my God...” I might not have gotten a good enough look at Lero to accurately estimate his age, but he definitely did not have the appearance of an eighty-year-old. “Fae don’t age, then?”
“No.”
With a groan, I sank back into the pillows.
“What is it that we’re doing, Zeph? I’ll never live as long as you will. I’ll age... In a few decades, I’ll be old and wrinkly.”
He gathered me back into his arms, nuzzling the top of my head.
“I like you, Ivy, and I want a chance for us to see where it goes. I know it’s all new to you, but it is for me, too.” He rolled me to my back, holding my face between his hands. His expression remained serious, only a tiny smile was hiding deep in the corners of his mouth. “If this works out, I promise I’ll stay with you until your dying breath, no matter how old and wrinkly you’ll get.”
The word ‘promise’ cut my hearing.
“Don’t.” I winced. “Don’t make promises you’re not intending to keep.”
“I have every intention of keeping it,” he said earnestly.
A wide smile spread across his face as he kissed the tip of my nose. “Get some sleep now.”
Was I overreacting? Jumping ahead of myself? He did say, “if it works out,” after all. It might not, like with any relationship.
“One sure way to gross people out would be to have you on my arm when I’m eighty,” I mumbled, settling back into the pillows and into his arms.
“Would you really deny giving us a chance as a couple because of what strangers might think sixty years from now?”
Well, when he put it that way...
“Besides, I’ll be into my second century by then,” he chuckled. “You may end up leaving me for someone younger, anyway.”
WHEN I WOKE UP A COUPLE of hours later, I found myself teetering on the very edge of the bed. If it wasn’t for Zeph’s arm and leg hooked tightly around me, I would have fallen, for sure. The rest of his long body was spread out across the entire bed.
“I’m falling here,” I muttered, sleepily, grabbing him around his neck to hold on.
“Sorry.” He rolled to his back, taking me with him so I ended up on top of his chest. “I’m not used to sharing a bed with anyone.”
To be honest, I didn’t recall him actually sleeping with me the night I had spent in his apartment. I assumed he came to bed after I had fallen asleep and got up before I awoke, but I couldn’t tell for sure.
The sight of him on the pillow, his silky white hair spread around his stunning face like a silver halo, was definitely out-of-this-world.
His hand on my nape, he lowered my head, kissing my lips. This time it was a lighter kiss, and he stopped it before it had a chance to grow into anything more.
“How are you feeling?” he asked.
“Wonderful.” I smiled. “You?”
“Much better.” He untangled himself from me. “We should keep going before Ghata finds this place.”
The sound of Madame’s name had the effect of an ice bucket