“I'm sorry!” He said as he pulled back, “That was... there may legitimately be something wrong with me.”

“I'm not upset,” Orenda said and moved one hand to her lips to run her fingertips over them. When he had kissed her, she had felt that fire within him even more strongly, it had connected like a mage focus, and the feeling still lingered there. “It... it felt like that scry. I don't understand why it doesn't hurt. Did you feel it? The magic?”

“I don't think that's what that was,” He said and stood up, massaging his temples with one hand, “I don't.. I can't...” he covered his mouth with that hand and stared out his only porthole, on the opposite wall and surrounded on all sides by those trunks, for some time before he continued, “I hate this. I hate being this stupid. I hate that I can't think, or speak, or act with any kind of conviction. It's... is it a bad time or am I just...”

“I just wish I could feel normal again,” Orenda said and curled her legs up to her aching stomach.

“I'm sorry, Rendy,” Toli looked like he was going to cry again, “I'll leave you alone so you can lie down. I'm... I'm bothering you with nonsense and it's... it's never going to change or get any better so I... I'm just going to... try very hard not to mention it again.”

“It isn't you,” She said, “It's this infernal ocean. I'm incredibly interested in you. I mean-”

“I know what you mean,” he said, “And I appreciate it. It's nice to know that you don't hate me for the sins of my parents.”

“I don't hate you at all.”

“That's what I meant,” he wrapped his arms around himself and said, “You know, maybe it isn't the ocean. Maybe you have something catching. My stomach is starting to knot.”

“Oh,” Orenda told him, “I... I know we made fun of you for having a weak constitution and a poor set of nerves, but I was supposed to tell you something and I sort of forgot it. About that-”

“It's better now than it was,” he said, “I'm told that when I was a baby I almost didn't make it through my first year because I just could not get well. I caught every disease a child could have.”

“The djinn,” Orenda said because she needed to get it out, “Has been protecting you. Your mother made a wish that you would be safe, and, I suppose, healthy. But now that she's dead he's not going to protect you anymore.”

This news seemed to confuse him.

“She wouldn't have done that,” he said, “She's never given any particular indication that she cared about me at all.”

“I'm only telling you what Ali said,” Orenda said, “He told me to warn you.”

“Do I look sick?” He asked.

“All you earth elves have always looked sickly to me,” Orenda said, “I can't judge it. You're all spindly and pale. Except for Stephendore, actually. He's rather strong. He has a bit of heft to him.”

“Yeah, he's like crazy strong to have one foot in the grave,” Tolith said in thought, “I think I just... worried myself into a fit or something. I'm sorry, Rendy. I'm trying really, really hard not to be like this. I don't know why it went on for so long. You would think I would have gotten over it.”

He was touching his lips, and Orenda thought that he didn't realize he was doing it.

“I've put a little weight on, traveling,” he said, “It's a lot of exercise, sailing with such a small crew. I've been doing a lot of the work myself.”

Orenda looked at the man on the cover of the book, and back at Tolith and made a connection that caused her to feel conflicting emotions. His emulation was, one one hand, worthy of sympathy because it proved that he was trying to do something- but on the other it was so overwhelmingly stupid that she wanted to throw something at him, so she did. She picked up the book and threw it as she had the glass, and like the glass, it hit him right in his stupid pretty face, but it was much lighter, and it didn't seem to hurt him at all.

“Stop throwing shit at me!” He demanded when he bent to pick it up, “What is your problem?”

“It's just so annoying,” She said, “That you sat around your whole life reading adventure stories or romance novels or textbooks and then tried to mold your life around patterns that you liked. It's too obvious for someone as smart as you are. Aren't you pale people prone to sunburn? You're going to hurt yourself to try to look like a book cover?”

“I've got a crate of aloe somewhere,” he said, “I think it's in the kitchen.”

He sat back on the bed and tossed the book onto the desk. He seemed to have something serious to say, so Orenda waited for him to gather his courage.

“I don't want you to pretend to love me,” he said.

“We're going in circles,” Orenda told him, “And I can't do that, Toli. I like you but I can't. I'm too ill. You need a journal.”

“Why did you ask if I wanted to kiss you?” he asked.

“Because you did.” She said, “And then you actually did. Why did you do that if you were going to mope about it?”

“Because... because you... you really, will, Rendy. You really will kill the Emerald Knight. You'll just walk up with some magic staff and say, 'I'm Orenda Nochdifache, and I'm going to kill you!' And then you will! You just... you just don't care, at all. You did that to Quiroris! We were all terrified of him, all of us! He was a war hero! He was a hardened soldier! He could slaughter any of us with a word and you called him by his first name and threatened to set him on fire!”

“What? When I was a child?” Orenda asked, “I panicked, when I met him- I had nearly drowned! I was frightened of him, but by that point I had already made my bed, I had to lie in it. I couldn't back out. Who knows what he would have done then? Nothing, probably, knowing what I know now and how big of a pushover he is. He's not frightening at all, really.”

“I've never seen anyone else stand up to my mother,” Tolith argued. “Well, I mean... before Ali, I guess. I feel like that counts. I can't think straight right now. Or maybe ever again. Part of me wants to just get very drunk, but I don't... know why exactly? Or think it's healthy.”

“I would do that,” Orenda said, “I've never really been that drunk, and I think it may settle my stomach.”

“But it's a bad decision,” he said, “Like... we both know it's a bad decision, right? Are we really willing to be that wrong on purpose?”

“It wouldn't be the worst decision I ever made,” Orenda told him.

“I mean,” he leaned back on one arm and stared into her eyes, “I guess I just... I feel better if... If I have someone else to make bad decisions with. If I... I don't want to say 'get permission', but... God, Rendy, I want to do things that I'll later regret.”

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“I know,” She told him, because it was true, and to drive the point home she reached up with one hand and cupped his face and smoothed out little circles under his eye with her thumb.

He took that hand by the wrist, and without breaking eye contact pulled her hand away and kissed her open palm, then brought it back and snuggled into it.

“You're so hot,” he told her, “so much warmer than anyone else... it really is like... it's like there's a furnace burning under your skin.”

“I think we run hot,” she said, “all of us, fire elves.”

“Everywhere?” he asked.

“I think so,” She smiled and reached up with her free hand to pull him closer, then down with her so she could lie on her back, partially, she admitted because Tolith was so concerned with practicality, because it really was making her more ill to sit up like that.

He braced himself with his hands on the blanket on either side of her and looked down with indecision.

“God, Rendy, it's... it's such a bad decision, I'm... I'm gonna regret...”

“Why?” She asked, “I don't think I will. You said you studied extensively, that you knew what you were doing.” She laughed, and he didn't appreciate it as much as she thought he would. He seemed to think she was making fun of him.

“Toli,” she ran one hand down his cheek to force him to look at her, “Why are you making this out to be so massive? In the grand scheme of things, the entire world is changing. I'm going off to find an ancient artifact to kill something that has killed gods. You have gone from a stuffy nobleman to,” she looked around the small room at the chests then back to his eyes, “An aquatic thief- I think we have a word for that- this is nothing. Relax.”

“It is something,” he argued, “It's something to me. Not... not because I think... that it would mean that you had... fallen for me or anything, but because among the nobility it's supposed to be this... it's tied in with the arranged marriages and all that, and it's... there's this whole thing where you're supposed to produce an heir, and you're only supposed to try to do that with someone that your parents pick out... which is... god that's so weird to explain? Like to say? It's all so weird... and after that first time, it... it changes you, and you're not the same person anymore.”

“That's not a real thing,” Orenda told him as if she had any knowledge on the matter, “That's just something they write about to sell books. Real people don't think in flower metaphors and other nonsense. Also, you couldn't get me pregnant, could you? You're an earth elf. So there won't be any heir and I'll be glad of it. Toli, I cannot imagine your child. You're an idiot and you've been educated. We'd have to watch it every second or it would run headfirst into the ocean or something.”

“Oh, no, they do actually do that,” he said as if he had considered it, “Kids are so dumb, Rendy, they just eat shit off the floor and like, plants and stuff- they'll touch hot coals, you really do like- that wouldn't just be if you had kids with me, literally any kid is like that and it is terrifying and I don't know why my parents were so into me having one. Because... I just do not want that kind of responsibility? Like, that's terrifying, right? 'Here's a real person that you have to take care of, that knows nothing of the world.' And it's like... I can't take care of myself!”

“I imagine that's why people hire nursemaids,” Orenda said, annoyed that they had gotten off topic, “My point is, nothing is going to change and none of it will matter in the long run. You need comfort, we both need friendship, and... the idea that the act somehow fundamentally changes who you are is ridiculous. I can't imagine that that's really the case. I don't think my vagina has that power, to fundamentally change a person.”

Tolith's mask of fear broke and he fell from his hands to his elbows with the laughter.

“Oh my god, you're right,” he said, “That's... that's really fucking stupid, isn't it? God, Rendy, you just, have this gift to say things as they really are, without all this cultural bullshit surrounding it. The idea... the idea that my dick could fundamentally change a person- it's so arrogant, isn't it? I don't... I'm not even super sure how this thing works because it's weird, like I know you don't get it but there's like... it's this whole thing- in dance class-”

Bur Orenda felt a rant on and cut him off.

“You don't know how it works?” She asked, “From the books it seemed quite simple. Point and shoot, isn't it? I mean, it doesn't seem particularly complicated. That's like... when you look at a sword, you can more or less tell that the pointy part goes in the other person.”

“Oh my god,” He buried his face in her bosom to contain his laughter.

She thought it was nice to see him laugh.

“Here,” she said, “Sit up and help me get out of this dress.”

“Oh god,” he said, “Ok uh... Rendy, seriously, let me... Let me get my head on straight. I gotta... I've thought about this so much and-”

“You overthink things,” She told him.

The books had been wrong about a number of things.

The most obvious of which was that the language had been all wrong. Orenda was right in her assumption that real people did not think in metaphors about flowers opening up or winding yarn or any other nonsense. The thought process was very much as straightforward as she had thought it would be.

The second was that she felt the magic flowing as much as the physical touch. The heat of his heart sparked everywhere they touched; it felt like a focus, like he was flowing into her, and she was flowing into him, and the magic in their blood formed a single river that ran through them both. It had opened her up almost too much, but she was in it now, and there was no turning it off, because she imagined that the sudden absence would make her angry.

He had made her angry at first. He really did seem to have notes, to have a road map in his head, just as he had with the dance, and it made him just as terrible at the rhythm. It did not interest her, at least right now, though it would perhaps be interesting at literally any other time, Toli, for the love of god, what biological structures were or how they worked. She didn't need to know what the hood or the thing under it was called, and she had figured out quite easily why he was pulling it back. He also seemed to be saying these things more to himself than to her, so she had grabbed him by the hair in a rage, and it didn't take much heat to get him to close his mouth.

She didn't feel nearly as sick as she had when they had begun, and they hadn't even reached the final act yet. As it was, she found that the magic was flowing so strongly that it pushed back the awful blanket the sea tried to weigh her down with, and as the physical jolts washed over her with it, became closer together, and it became impossible for her to ride one out before the next began, she gave into the sensation and began to scream.

When her ears stopped ringing and her muscles unclenched, she was confused about why he was screaming with her. He hadn't been in any kind of position to warrant that kind of sound- they hadn't really gotten to him yet, so to speak- so she sat up, trying to blink some sense back into her head, and saw that he had, for some reason, conjured an earth shield. The stone clung to his body, and it took her longer than she would care to admit to see the scorch marks.

It crumbled apart and he brushed it from the bed with wide eyes, and Orenda reached up to touch him, but her hand hovered awkwardly in the air and her body trembled. He had two deep burns that ran along either side of his face just under his eyes stretching all the way to his hairline.

“Toli, I,” she said, “I didn't... it was an accident, I...”

He held up a hand, reached under the bed and came up with his father's staff. She watched it glow and knew he was trying to heal himself, but she could not hear the incantation until his mouth began to move, his flesh had more or less knit back together, and he was left with only a slight discoloration from the middle of the wounds. Still though, they were scars, and it was obvious that he couldn't heal them. He would be scarred for the rest of his life.

Then a smile split his face and he said, “We'll have to stop somewhere and pick up some new blankets when Adam finds out where we are, because... god, Rendy, I'd hate to see what you could do when you weren't weakened by the ocean. Pretty sure if we'd been on land I'd be dead and the entire house or inn or whatever would be gone.”

“It's not funny!” She snapped.

“It's pretty funny,” he argued.

“I could have really hurt you!” She said, and flashes of the library flittered through her mind, then of the bathhouse, the steam that had destroyed the building, that she had never meant to conjure. Bad decisions and no decisions and terrible, terrible things.

“Rendy,” He threw down the staff and cupped her face, “It's... don't cry, it's fine! I'm fine! Everything is ok, remember? Just like you told me? None of it matters, we're just having fun and everything's ok. You know what? Let's... let's take all this stuff off- the earrings, the necklace, the... god I really wanted you to leave the crown on, but let's take it off, ok?”

She nodded and asked, “You're alright?”

“I'm great,” he said, “Little... little bit concerned that I can shriek 'fire' at the top of my lungs and my whole crew will just ignore me, but... that's a good life lesson to have.”

“You were screaming 'fire'?” Orenda asked.

“You were screaming my name,” he giggled and unclasped the necklace.