She hesitated only a breath before taking the apples. “Thank you.”
“Eat one quick,” he said. “And do not let anyone see the other.”
In a flash he was up the stairs again.
More grateful than she could express, Wayfarer looked down at the apples. But she had no intention of eating one by herself and hiding the other. Stepping down the passage past Chap, she was about to open the door to her cabin.
—Wait—
She jumped slightly at that memory-word popping into her head, and, when she turned, Chap still stood farther up the passage.
—We must ... talk ... about ... Soráno—
“What do you—”
—On the docks ... when we went ... to find passage ... for this ship—
More and more of his memory-words in her head were becoming clearer over time—perhaps because he had been sneaking a peek at her memories far too often. She did not like that, but here and now she was still at a loss for ...
—When you touched ... me ... and pulled ... away—
Wayfarer backed down the passage, away from the cabin door—away from Chap.
What she thought she had seen in her head had been a mistake, only a flash of imagination. Perhaps he did not even know about the second time, when the anmaglâhk had tried to take her and he had stopped them.
In all the times she had thought about him—how different he was inside compared to the way he looked—she had tried to see through his eyes and imagine the world of a majay-hì like no other. That was all it had been ... that one flash of something on the docks of Soráno.
She did not want it to be anything more.
—There has been no proper time ... since then ... when we were alone— ... —I need to know—
Everything that had happened to her had started after learning of those watchful eyes in her people’s forest. Even when she did not catch them staring from the brush, it was as if they were always there, looking at her ... as he did now.
Chap stepped closer, and Wayfarer—once called Leanâlhâm—flattened her back against the passage’s wall.
—Touch me ... now—
“Please ... stop.”
—Now—
Even standing, she was short enough that he could have shoved his head into her stomach and knocked her down. But he simply stood there, looking up at her ... looking at her as so many others of his kind had once done.
Wayfarer took a shaky breath as she shifted the apples and clutched them to her chest with one arm. As she reached out, she flinched once before her fingertips touched his head between his ears.
At first nothing happened as she stared into his crystalline eyes, as blue as clear sky. And then she smelled ... something ... like a forest floor after a light rain. A flash of white appeared in her thoughts.
The white majay-hì stood in a space between tall trees in Wayfarer’s homeland. Sunlight caught in a coat of pure white fur, making the female hard to look upon as she padded ahead through the brush. It was not until the female paused, turning her head to look back, that Wayfarer realized ...
Flecks in the female’s eyes appeared to turn those blue irises green like her own. She was looking directly into those eyes as if she sat on the forest floor, but she was standing. And when she looked down ...
At the sight of paws where her hands should be, Wayfarer’s breaths stopped.
This had never happened when she had followed the white majay-hì.
The ship’s corridor reappeared, along with Chap, staring up at her. With a gasp, as if drowning, she pulled her hand back from his head. Then she turned too quickly, trying to get away, and bounced off the passage wall.
Wayfarer hit the floor. One apple fell from her grip and went tumbling farther down the passage. She rolled over, scooting backward in fright away from Chap ... and again when he took a step, still staring at her.
—What did you see?—
She looked at her hands to make sure they were not paws. Why was he doing this to her?
—Answer ... now—
“A forest ... my people’s,” she began. “But something ... someone else who—”
—Lily ... You saw Lily?—
Wayfarer lost her voice. It was not that he put a name on another sacred being; she had come to tolerate that through him. But she had heard that name before in reference to the white female ... Chap’s own mate, on the other side of the world.
“What did you do to me?” Wayfarer finally whispered.
This time he was the one to back away.
—No ... not me— ... —Only you ... somehow—
That was even worse.
“Well, what do we have here?” said a male with a thick accent.
Wayfarer twisted on the floor to look toward that voice down the passage.
A spindly and tall Suman sailor stood where the passage’s far end turned to another set of stairs down to the ship’s cargo hold. He grinned, half-toothless, as he tossed the apple she had dropped up in the air and caught it again. His eyes closed halfway in a hardened glare.
Still gripping the apple, he jerked his head to one side and took a threatening step. “Get out of my way!”
Wayfarer was too shaken and did not know what to do. A rumble, followed by a snarl, rose behind her.
Chap lunged forward. Before she could throw herself aside, he pushed off, leaping over her. She twisted back again to see him land and charge.
The sailor with the apple back-stepped to the corner. Chap cut him off before he could run, so instead he pulled a knife that Wayfarer had not noticed before from his belt.
Chap, all of his fur on end and his ears flattened, lunged in anyway. He snapped once toward the hand holding the apple.
Wayfarer thought she heard a door open behind her, but all of her fear was wrapped around the apple in the hand of the thief. Scrambling to her feet, she rushed in behind Chap. She shouted at the sailor, and, amid fearful anger, it came out in her own tongue.
“Give it to him!”
The man just stared at her until she pointed at the apple and then Chap. For an instant the sailor might have thought to hold out the apple, but he simply dropped it.
Chap snatched it in his jaws before it hit the floor. He backed up, still growling, and the man raced off, heading down for the cargo hold.
“What in the seven hells is all the noise?”
Wayfarer turned at the foul words normally used by Léshil, but it was Magiere who stood, with her falchion in hand, halfway out of the nearer cabin’s door—and she was naked.
Wayfarer flushed in staring.
Magiere swallowed and then almost toppled against the doorframe.
Léshil, one winged blade in hand, shoved past her, and ... he was naked as well.
Wayfarer’s breath caught in her throat as she spun away, scrunching her eyes closed. She heard scuffling and more awful language behind her, until ...
“What happened?” Magiere barked.
“Nothing ... nothing,” Wayfarer answered, though she did not know why she had lied. She hesitated before turning, barely opening one eye to peek.
“I ... I dropped an apple,” she added, “but Chap retrieved it.”
Magiere was now half-covered with a blanket, and the greimasg’äh must have come out of the other cabin, as he was standing closer with a stiletto still in hand. Both looked beyond Wayfarer and likely at Chap, with the other apple in his jaws. Wayfarer was thankful that Léshil was no longer in sight, though she still heard him muttering angrily inside the nearer cabin.
“An apple?” Magiere asked, and then she saw the other one, which Wayfarer still held. “It looks like you two have something to tell us.”