pretending too. He’s pretending the other male doesn’t exist. (Sort of—his dorsal spines are standing straight up now and beginning to drip, wetting the stone under our feet.) “Come here, Isla,” he orders me.
Dutifully, I move the whole four steps it takes to arrive at his side, my pitchfork dragging as I go, and I give him wide eyes as I lean back to gaze up at him. “Now what?”
“Now you will shush.” His gaze leaves mine and swings to the other Rakhii. “Which door?”
Flashing a smile at me with eyes that dance, the male says, “Let me check. You just wait here with your… Isla.”
“I will.” Bash is still holding his pitchfork, and no, he certainly doesn’t need the tool in order to do real damage (just look at him; every part of his body is built to cause damage) but with the way he’s gripping the handle in his talon-tipped hands, I’d be worried about irritating him (more). The other Rakhii must know to be a little wary because he grins at Bash as he backs away—literally backs away from him, until he disappears around the building. I shuffle enough to see around the rounded side of the kiln house and spy other Narwari wagons, ones that didn’t arrive here by way of the quarry—because I don’t recognize any of the animals or the wagons or the Rakhii that are moving back and forth carrying what looks like shovel fulls of black rock. Coal? It looks like tons of it, just judging by the wagons I can see. I guess it must take a lot to keep a building this size constantly fire-fed. Carts full of pale pink and yellow and lilac tiles—raw, unfired tiles, by the looks of them—sit off to the side, ready to be taken into the kiln.
While we wait for our Rakhii helper to return, I try to insert a nice, safe topic of discussion. “So, uh, it looks like there’s no hobs here?”
Bash, who’d been calmly glowering in the direction the other Rakhii left, is suddenly glaring at me, his eyes turning an impressive forest-fire green. As in, they flood as dark as a singed Evergreen. “No. You’ll not find them here. If it is hobs you want, you won’t find them this close to flames.”
“Oh.” I try silence on for size for as long as I can stand it.
I last maybe thirty seconds. Bash blows out a harassed breath when I ask in a loud stage whisper, “Why won’t you find hobs close to fire?”
The new Rakhii reappears in time to hear me ask this, trotting up to us, his tail held easily behind him (as opposed to the way Bash’s tail is snapping back and forth). The new Rakhii’s gaze slides from me to Bash. As he comes to a stop, his hands move to his hips as he takes us in for a moment. Then he smiles at me and offers, “Because hobs tend to catch fire.”
“Eeek.” I nod. “Good reason.” I give the new Rakhii a once-over. “You don’t catch fire?”
A grin is taking over the Rakhii’s face, and his eyes do the sliding thing again, from me to Bash and back to me. “Not before today,” he declares, sounding like he’s about to laugh. He taps the back of his arm, and my eyes drop to his scales there. “Our scales protect us from all but the most prolonged, direct flames.”
A big hand claps over my eyes. My hand flies up, covering the rough-scaled fingers, but I can’t budge the grip. Bash growls, “If you’re done showing yourself off to Isla, let’s unload this before the fire makes its revolution.”
“So,” I say conversationally from under Bash’s hand. “Mystery Rakhii. What is it you do here? Make things with clay?”
Voice laced with mirth, the other male sounds like he’s walking away as he calls back, “Sometimes. Officially, I’m a charcoal collier.”
“Like you make charcoal?” I fidget under Bash’s hand, picking at his finger’s scales, but not actively trying to escape. Truthfully, it hasn’t gone unnoticed that Bash doesn’t initiate contact with anyone, but he’s touched me with his tail and now this. I’m not going to break the spell here; I kind of like his hand on me, even if it is a little inappropriate (read: kinky) for an employer to blindfold an employee.
“Yes,” the mystery Rakhii replies.
“Neat. How do you make charcoal?”
A lock sounds like it clangs. There’s a creak of hinges. The Rakhii talks over this easily,