“Fringe,” he murmured, as in a dream.
“Shhh.” She lay beside him, closing his hand around the cube, holding it in her own. In a moment, he breathed deeply, half asleep once more, and she sat up to comb her hair, hearing the snap and spark as the comb slid down the long tresses. No one was watching, but just in case … just in case. All she was doing was combing her hair. Not braiding it, because she wasn’t an Enforcer, not here in Shallow. She was just a woman kissing her lover and combing her hair. That’s all. Let spy-eyes make what they would of that! She sought her fastener among their tumbled clothing, knotted her hair on the top of her head, and pushed the teeth of the fastener through it, feeling the fangs as though they went into her flesh.
Then she extricated herself bit by slow bit, her clothes, her limbs, her feelings, all of her, back together in one place. So. Now what was she going to do? She’d sworn she wouldn’t get involved with Danivon Luze, and she’d done it anyhow. She’d let it happen. Lying to herself. Calling it duty when it had probably been lust all the time. She didn’t call it love, didn’t think of that, didn’t let herself think of that, even though she wanted to lie down beside him once more, lay her lips at his throat, lose herself. She wanted to feed on him, sate all her hungers with him, soak him into herself, root herself in him. Be whole with him, whole as she had never been. That’s what love must be for, to feel like that.
At least, so Souile had said once. Love was to make yourself whole. Well, it hadn’t worked for Souile, had it? Or for Char. It hadn’t worked for anyone Fringe knew.
And when it didn’t work, it was worse than nothing. It was regret, sorrow, love sucking you in until you couldn’t move, holding you down, making you stop struggling and taking you over, just as Danivon had done. Like the Hobbs Land Gods. Taking you over. Eating you up and leaving you too stupid even to know you didn’t exist anymore!
She took a deep, trembling breath and told herself she would not, that’s all. If it had really happened, it would be a mistake, so it had never happened. She had given Danivon the message, that’s all. A little playacting. Unthink it. Nothing happened.
She took a blanket and sneaked away silently, out onto the shared piazza where she found a comfortable chair and cocooned herself into it to watch little lights moving among the lilies where the people of Shallow were night-fishing with torches and spears, the gossle boats moving around the lagoon like black bugs with shining eyes. After a time, hypnotized by the moving lights, she slept.
Danivon slept as well, a smile curving his lips. Sometime later he was wakened by a fisherman’s shout and reached out for her, only to find her gone. Half-dressed, dragging his discarded clothing, he looked onto the piazza but didn’t see her buried in the depths of the chair. Puzzled, he made his way to the room he shared with Curvis, finding it dark and silent except for an occasional explosive snore.
The thing she had given him while he lay half dreaming was clutched in his hand. This thing she had said … said what about? Said to be private before he looked at it. He went to one of the sanitary cubicles cantilevered out over the lagoon, a primitive arrangement, but a reasonably private one, lit by a fish-oil lamp suspended from the ceiling. The light was dim but adequate to show him a standard transmitter cube. Well. So? He went back to the room, inserted the device into his reader, and let it whisper into his ear.
“Danivon, you are in danger,” it said in a whimper that sounded not at all like Boarmus. “There’s a kind of force here on Elsewhere, and it’s after you, after the people with you. It says it intends to kill you. I don’t know if it can kill you, but it wants to. When I see it, it looks like a ghost. Maybe it will look like a ghost to you. It’s taking people over, enslaving people, killing people, Danivon. Not the Hobbs Land Gods, Danivon. Another thing. Be careful.”
Which didn’t sound like cold old Boarmus at all. Which sounded so unlike him it sent a chill through Danivon, along with a smell of old, corrupted ice. Boarmus was talking in generalities, in hints and clues. As though to be specific would be even more dangerous—for whom? Boarmus or himself?
“Try to stay alive,” the cube sobbed in his ear. “Be very careful! I may need you.”
How long had Fringe been carrying this thing? Since Tolerance? Why hadn’t she given it to him before! Considerably shaken, Danivon wiped out the message and dropped the cube among others in his kit. So the danger he’d been smelling was not merely for the usual kind of risk. It was something bigger than that. Worse. And whatever it was had evidently come to Shallow. Sparkling and noises and people disappearing. Had the danger followed them? Or was it lying in wait?
He lay back on his bed and considered matters. Nothing had changed, except that he knew Boarmus knew. He shouldn’t be furious at Fringe for taking so long, except that he was angry. Last night had seemingly not been what he had hoped it was!
By morning, his feelings were thoroughly confused, sleepiness mixed with erotic longing for Fringe mixed with fury at her for … for being Fringe! He went to her room, went in without knocking, and found her sitting at the window.
“Rude of you,” she remarked in a toneless voice.
“Fringe. Come on, we need to talk about—”
“What about, Danivon?”
“About?” he exploded in a whisper, conscious of Curvis on the piazza, of the twins
