And All the Stars (27 page)

He did more, moving the café-style table within her reach,
and lifting out the trays of pencils before rescuing his clothes from the pile
by the door, hanging up her bathrobe, and heading out to the main room of the
suite. She had made a great deal of
progress before his return, enough that when a sweet, spicy scent forced itself
on her notice she was willing to look at the bowls and cups he was fitting into
the gaps of the table. Steaming porridge
sprinkled with nuts, dried fruit and brown sugar.

"Did you make this?" Hunger abruptly triumphed over art, and she
reached for a bowl.

"With considerable guidance from Noi. I've never really had much occasion to
cook."

"Was she very entertained?"

"If today wasn't Pan's birthday, it probably wouldn't be
safe for us to venture out." He
slipped her sketchbook from her lap and studied the picture while she began to
eat. "What do you do with your
sketches? And the paintings."

"Keep them in my room. I used to scan them and post them on an art site, but I took them all
down last year. Being
hypercritical. Not wanting to be known
for work I no longer considered my best." She sighed, then glanced at his face, absorbed as he continued to study
the picture. "You can have that
one," she added softly. "When
I've finished it."

His open pleasure made her feel light-headed, and as soon as
she'd finished her meal she took him back to bed. Still plenty to learn. But curled with him afterwards, thirty people
crept into her thoughts. This was an
interlude which could not last.

"Do you think we should try to get out of the city like
Noi wants?"

"Getting out of the city is likely to be considerably
harder than Noi wants to believe. More
to the point, that dragon's range and speed means out of the city isn't any
guarantee of safety. But I don't think
we'll last two years here, either." He hesitated. "I know it
seems like we've made no progress, but it's only when we have a full
understanding of what we can do that we can hope to mount any kind of
attack. I do think I've found a third
ability, though a practical use for it isn't immediately obvious."

"A third ability? What?"

He didn't reply immediately, shifting to lie staring at the
ceiling. "Think over what it feels
like to feed Nash," he said at last, almost too low for her to hear.

Everyone tended to shy away from discussing the heady warmth
Nash could conjure. It wasn't quite a
sexual thing, but it was very pleasurable, like an intangible massage. It usually left Madeleine a little tired, yet
feeling good.

"Now think about what it feels like to punch, and to
shield. The sensation is not the
same. Although Nash is clearly drawing
on that punch power reservoir, it is–"

"There's something else involved." The more she thought about it, the more
convinced she was Fisher had a point. "When I feed Nash, I really feel like I'm, well...almost like I'm
sitting next to myself. I don't get that
sensation at all when I shield or punch.

"I've been focusing on that," Fisher said, still
speaking very low. "Isolating the
sensation, trying to work with it. This
is..." He stopped, frowning
fiercely at the ceiling. "Close
your eyes."

She studied his profile, then settled herself more
comfortably and obeyed.

"I'm going to reach for you," he continued. "I'm not certain how..." He paused again. "Tell me to stop right away if I hurt
you, and try not to shield-stun me."

Madeleine realised that part of the reason for the hint of
reserve in his voice was an unspoken: "Or mash me into paste".

"Okay," she said, deciding to postpone some serious
thought on a life of being uncomfortably dangerous.

Warmth. A delicate
thread which was somehow a thing to capture all her attention and make her want
to shy away, to push back, but also light her up, a spark to a bonfire. It wasn't simple heat, was a presence, a
piercing tenderness,
underlaid
by anger and fear.

"It's like I'm
breathing
you."

The warmth faded, and Fisher moved so he could tangle fingers
with hers. "Did it hurt?"

"N-no." Pain
was the wrong word, but she didn't have any proper equivalent. "Like drowning, but not," she
tried. The sense of his presence as a
thing additional to the physical was fading, leaving her as alertly roused as a
jolt of caffeine.

"Try it on me. As
lightly as you can."

This was far from simple. The power she used to shield and punch was something tangible to her,
and her awareness of containing it was strong. Trying to locate and manipulate something presumably intrinsic to
herself – perhaps literally her own self – was a bit like attempting to look at
the colour of her own eyes. But in a way
Fisher had held up a mirror.

He drew in his breath, hand tightening on hers, and she
faltered, then reigned back the outpouring of self to a thread as delicate as
gossamer, a thistledown spiritual embrace. Fisher reached back with a thread of his own, and that was something new
again, fragile and overwhelming.

They couldn't sustain it, and drew back, panting like
runners. Not tired, like feeding Nash
would leave them, but instead feeling powerfully alive.

"There's no way I'm practicing that with a group,"
she said when she could speak, and he laughed, but the sound had a bereft note
to it, so she kissed him and that was an easier, more familiar path to follow,
but made different again by their intense, lingering awareness of each other.

Madeleine wondered if this was something non-Blues would be
able to do, something related to the spirit or the soul, or if it was merely
another newly discovered difference to make her less human. And whether she could possibly cope with the
way she was feeling about this boy she'd known a bare few weeks.

"What are you thinking?"

She didn't answer, shifting against him.

"Tell me. You're
bothered by something."

"I was wondering," she said, very slowly, "if
we would have gotten together if all this hadn't happened."

"No."

The answer was immediate, unhesitating, and she shrank a
little. His arms tightened around her.

"We would never have met," he explained, voice
dropping to a husky note. "I would
have gone about my life and not thought I was missing anything. You would have – you would have painted
obsessively, all those transformative images, and I would be someone unimagined
and unknown, and I cannot decide whether it would be trite to call that a
tragedy or if I should resent you for making this – all this
death
–
somehow bearable, tolerable for the tenuous joy I have gained. You steal my anger and leave me dazed."

He stopped, took a shaking breath, then laughed.

"I sound like Pan's understudy, failing to channel
Shakespeare. There's no way to do more
than guess what would have happened if Fisher Charteris and Madeleine Cost met
one day in a world which had never feared dust, any more than we can be certain
of surviving two years, or two days. I
can't speak to what-ifs, but I know I will always be glad to have been here in
this moment with you."

"When I'm having an apocalypse, I always insist on six
star accommodation." Noi waved a
gloved hand languidly, and turned so the skirt of her dress coiled and
swirled. She considered herself in the
mirrored wall dominating one side of the store. "Maybe a little too Grande Dame?"

"Try the yellow one," Madeleine suggested.

"All I can think when I see that is Fire Hazard."

"Which makes it a good thing the cooking's all but
done. And, plus, aprons."

"There's not going to be any winning of arguments with
you today, is there?"
Noi's
smile was indulgent, and she disappeared into the
dressing room with the fringe-covered yellow dress just as Emily emerged in a
ruffled satin gown. "No, Millie,
absolutely not," she said, before tugging the curtain across.

Emily eyed herself in the mirror and evidently agreed,
selecting a white dress from the store's limited range of evening wear and retreating
once again.

The day had already been full. Madeleine and Fisher had emerged in time to
help decorate the small function room chosen for the night's festivities, and
only smiled at teasing looks and comments. After lunch there had been swimming, and then a group effort at
preparing an evening feast, Pan insisting on joining in because: "What fun
is there in sitting by myself while you're all off together?"

With only a few things needing last-minute heating, they'd
separated to clean up and take advantage of finally locating the security codes
to the foyer's selection of expensive stores. Party clothes.

"Pity there isn't a shoe place," Noi said, emerging
to eye herself doubtfully. The yellow
dress, a tight-fitting sheath covered in tiers of gold-shot fringes, shimmered
with every tiny movement, emphasising her curves. "But I can live with barefoot in sheer
silk stockings."

Madeleine looked down at her legs, glimmering blue through
the semi-transparent skirt of the icy flapper-style dress she'd fallen for on
sight. "I'm not sure stockings work
for me
any more
."

"Mm. You've got a
point. Shall I take the time to point
out that you're suddenly no longer trying to hide every inch of your starry
starry
skin?"

"Would there be any way to stop you?" Madeleine
asked, and wondered how Noi would react if Madeleine shared her discovery that
breasts were like tickling: a concept not fully appreciated until someone else
was involved.

Noi took a few dancing steps, watching the fringes at her
hips shimmer, then plumped down beside Madeleine.

"Okay, less teasing, more congratulations. You think you'll work out? Long term?"

"Maybe." Madeleine had to admit to wanting there to be a long term. "If the Moths give us the chance. I...I think I fell in love with him this
morning."

"What, not till then? Not that I'm arguing against try before you buy, mind you, but it took
him all the way till morning to impress you?"

"Before, I knew I really liked him. A lot. But this morning when he woke up I was drawing him, and he asked if it
was okay to move. And then fetched me
stuff, instead of expecting me to stop. Most people, when they meet me, it's completely obvious to them that
drawing is important to me. But Fisher,
he treats my drawing as important. The
way that makes me feel..."

"Are you looking for a boyfriend or a groupie?"

"I'm not sure I could really...belong with someone who
treated my drawing the way my mother does – a nice little hobby, admirable
enough, but always to be put aside in favour of everything someone else thinks
is important." Madeleine sighed,
then gave Noi a steady look. "And
are you ever going to give Pan a chance?"

Noi lifted brows in exaggerated surprise. "What, you think I'm falling over for
want of someone warm to hold? You don't
get trapped with a small group of people and have one of them just happen to be
your one true love. Or–" She broke off, and gave Madeleine an
apologetic grin. "Well, the odds
are against it, and I think you've used all the good luck up. Pan's just a nice kid."

"Noi."

A single word to add cherry tones to
Noi's
warm brown skin. The shorter girl looked
away.

"The way I am about him, it's not me," she went on,
the words low and rushed. "I'm
usually the together, lightly-invested one. But, hell, all I want to do is throw myself at his feet and beg to be
the
Tink
to his Peter. I want to do flighty, charming things which
make him break out into speeches, and then I want to do…everything. He treats me like his
Mum
."

"No, like Wonder Woman, remember? He thinks you're awesome."

Shoulders hunched, studying her toes, Noi shook her
head. "It's all because of the
Spires, the disaster. I can't trust the
way I feel right now. I wouldn't have
looked at him twice, in the real world. Well, I'd have looked, but I sure as hell would never have wanted to
find myself a green mini-dress and a pair of wings."

"Tinker Bell's an inch tall. I don't think she'd be much use
for…everything. Wouldn't you be better
off being the Noi to his Lee? Pan can
hardly be the right role for him today, not on his birthday. And he really admires you."

"That's not helpful." Noi was recovering, and shook her head so her
curls bounced. "Enough. The whole world doesn't have to fall in love
just because you have. This is the day
for fun, not serious talk."

She climbed to her feet in time to inspect Emily, shyly
emerging in a delicate white shift. Approving this enthusiastically, Noi bustled them off to see to hair,
and regret the lack of makeup. They
decided not to risk the jewellery shop, the contents of which were locked away
behind an extra level of security.

"But in a way I like the whole mix of formal and
underdressed," Noi said as she led the way to the menswear store, patting
the upswept Grecian style into which she'd wrestled her curls. "It's a bit like a beach wedding."

She took several dancing steps, fringes flaring as she spun:
a lively girl of eighteen more than a little tired of running and hiding and
being sensible. Nash, the only one of
the four boys visible in the store, turned to look at her, smiled, and then
bowed and held out a hand. Noi dipped in
return, and they waltzed over marble: Nash tall and fine in a dark suit, black
hair swept back, wearing black socks and no shoes; Noi vibrant and shimmering,
barefoot.

"Man, Noi is totally in Goddess mode tonight." Pan had emerged, knotting a blue-black
tie. "Told you Nash could
dance."

Madeleine studied him carefully, but decided to shelve the
question of what kind of admiration was bright in his eyes. "Enjoying your birthday?"