a breath. To be naked with Stefan . . . But no, he’d never expect that. So they’d take turns. She could handle that, knew he’d never peek . . . though she might. Skin flushing, she rubbed her hands over her face. “I should stay, do some more work on the power station. Sooner I get that up and running at full capacity, the better.”
“You said yourself the fading light is dangerous. You could make an error with the finer components.”
Tazia nodded. She’d stopped work fifteen minutes prior for that very reason. “All right,” she said, but glanced around the area, guilt still gnawing at her. “Do you think it’s okay?” She felt filthy, but that was nothing, not in comparison to the destruction around them. “I don’t want to waste time.”
“We won’t be gone long.” Stefan glanced at the rubble. “And there are only the dead waiting below now.”
Her hand rose toward his arm; she had to consciously wrench it back before she made contact. “You’re sure?” she whispered.
“Yes.” No expression on his face, no change in his tone . . . but his eyes, they were fixed on the crushed ruin of the village. “At night,” he added, “when the humans fall into exhausted sleep, the area is clear and I can search with my telepathic senses. There are no longer any living minds under the rubble.”
Heart a lump of pain in her chest and mind filling with the name of the little girl who’d wanted to be an engineer, Tazia closed her eyes in a moment of remembrance. When she opened them, it was on a swell of quiet determination. Nothing could turn back the clock, bring the dead back to life. What she could do was ensure Stefan’s health.
The death toll would’ve been far higher without his dogged efforts.
“Come on, we should get to the spring before it gets dark.” Ducking into the tent, she grabbed a towel from her gear, and two sets of dirty clothing. She could at least rinse them out; they should dry quickly in this heat.
Stefan did the same before stepping close to her.
“Ready?” he said, as he had the first time he ’ported her.
“Yes.”
They arrived at the rock formation an eyeblink later, which spoke to the relative proximity of the area—and yet it was far enough away that she couldn’t see or hear anything from the village. Taking out the map, she pinpointed their current position, then traced the line that should lead them to the spring itself.
“I have it,” Stefan said and set off without another glimpse at the map.
A ten-minute walk later, they ducked into the mouth of a cave and followed the sense of damp heat until they found themselves in a chamber lit by the fading evening light that poured in through a hole in the roof, the air hazy with curls of steam.
“In,” she ordered Stefan, putting down her stuff and taking his. “Now, Stefan.”
“You should—”
“Don’t be chivalrous,” she ordered. “You’re moving more stiffly already. Get in before I push you in.”
A small pause before he lifted his fingers to the seal of his jacket, their eyes locked. It felt shockingly intimate to watch him do that simple act, butterflies taking mad flight in her stomach. Turning her back to give him privacy, she tried to focus on the wall in front of her, but was breath-stealingly aware of every tiny sound Stefan made as he stripped out of his clothes.
“You never speak so authoritatively to me on Alaris,” he murmured, his voice stroking over her skin.
She fought a shiver. “You’re my boss on Alaris.”
The sound of water lapping, a slight hiss. “It is extremely hot.”
“Good.” Keeping her back to him, she frowned and stepped closer to another area of misty vapor. “I think there’s a tiny spring here, too.” Smiling when she discovered she was right, she took all their clothes and began to dump them piece by piece into the water, pulling out each in turn to scrub it against a large wet stone in an effort to get some of the dirt out at least. Once she had an armful, she walked outside and placed the clothes on sun-warmed rocks to dry.
“I can do mine, Tazia,” Stefan said when she came back in and returned to her task.
Rolling her eyes, she looked over her shoulder. “Can you ever just accept a favor and say thank you?”
Wide shoulders exposed by the way he sat in the spring, his strong arms braced along