““Standing on it, she craned her neck out, turning it this way and that until head, shoulders, and a goodly share of her torso were hanging out over the sun-splattered water. It was thus that Alex found her when he came down at midday. He sighed deeply enough to tell her he was there. She withdrew with as good grace as she could manage and assumed a look of cheerful innocence. “Beautiful day, my lord.” She hadn’t quite gotten round to calling him kreon but she was resolved to manage it once they reached Akora. Anything for Royce. His eyebrows were quite extraordinarily eloquent. She had almost learned to chart his moods, some of them at least, by the rise and fall of those ebony wings. “Some people might think it overly risky to stick half their bodies out the porthole of a ship moving as fast as this one.” This close to her goal, she was in an extremely good mood, so much so that neither his sardonic drawl or the surge of sensual awareness he provoked troubled her. At least not much. Brightly, she said, “Isn’t it a good thing the world is made of different sorts? There’s use even for the foolishly cautious, I’m sure.” “But you’d be hard pressed to say what it might be.””
