Sawyer passed the bowl to Annika. “Well, now we know which star we’re looking for in and around Capri. The Water Star. We can take that off the list of what we need to figure out.”
“It’s blue, and beautiful. Unearthly blue. I don’t know if I can capture the tones of it with paint. The Fire Star, it flashed and burned. And this . . .” Sasha closed her eyes a moment. “It glowed and seemed to . . . ripple. Water? Maybe that’s why.”
After she’d wound pasta around her fork, sampled, Sasha closed her eyes again. “Oh, this is good, Sawyer. This is just exactly right. I’ll take the breakfast shift.”
“No, I’ve got it. You get the morning off.”
“I can help again.”
“And see.” He gestured to Annika. “I’ve got my top sous chef, willing and able.”
“I made this.” Annika carefully cut a bite of the salad. “And it’s good.”
“Damn good,” Riley concurred, and took a second helping. “I’ll hit research mode tomorrow. Maybe it’s knee-jerk to figure the Water Star’s in the water, but the first was—or under it. I know some of the caves around here, water and land. I’ll find out more.”
“You spoke of both land and sea,” Bran pointed out. “Of songs and sighs.”
“Like when we were flying.”
“What?”
“Not flying,” Annika said to Sawyer. “What it feels like to fly, or what I think it would feel like to fly. The traveling. The songs and the sighs when you brought us here.”
“What songs and sighs, Annika?” Bran’s dark gaze arrowed to her.
“You didn’t hear them?”
“No.” He glanced around the table. “I don’t think the rest of us heard anything.”
“All I heard was the tornado.” Though she watched Annika, Riley continued to eat. “I’ve been through a few, and that’s what traveling Sawyer’s way sounds like to me. But you heard singing and sighing.”
“Only for a moment. It was so beautiful. It—” She pressed a hand to her heart, then cupped it out. “It made my heart big. There was the wind, and the colors and light. It’s very exciting. Then the songs, just music with words I couldn’t hear all the way. And sighs, but not sad ones—or not all sad. Sweet, but with some sadness. A little sorrow with the joy. Is that right?”
“Mermaid ears, maybe?” Riley speculated. “Water Star, mermaid. Interesting.” She took another bite of pasta, smiled. “We’re going to need another boat. I’ll get on that.”
Later, when the house was quiet, when all her friends slept, Annika stepped out on the terrace outside her new room. The sea drew her—she was of it, from it. She wished she could fly down to it, wished she could swim inside its heart for a little while.
But the sea must wait.
She had the legs, and she prized them, though now that she’d told the others what she was—she’d had no choice—her time with them was a ticking clock.
So she wished on the moon-slice over the sea that she might sing and sigh inside Sawyer’s heart, in the time she had left. She wished he might feel what she felt, if only for a single day.
Duty came first, and she would never shirk it. But she could hope inside her heart that she would do her duty, fulfill her legacy.
And know love before she returned to the sea forever.
CHAPTER TWO
In the morning, Annika woke early. She chose one of her pretty dresses that swirled around her legs—a lovely reminder she had them—and hurried straight down to the kitchen.
She wanted to make the coffee. She’d learned how in the villa on Corfu, and liked doing things ord
inary people did. But this new house had a different machine, and would take some time to figure out.
She liked figuring things out, too.
Today she wanted real flowers for the table, so she wandered outside and down toward the garden. And saw the pool. The pale blue water under the first soft beams of sunlight.