"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."
Chapter Nineteen
"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 trap
ped 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?"
"Unbelievably. And I refuse to be guilty about it. Tonight we live!"
He grabbed her hands and, head tipped back in abandoned laughter, spun her into a child's whirl across the marble, then fumbled for more formal movements. Fisher, in crisp shirtsleeves, offered Emily his hand, and stepped her carefully through the basic movements of the waltz until Min, with a James Bond air in a suit a little too long for him, dryly recommended they fool around somewhere other than in full sight of the glass entry doors.
Furnished with coats to protect their finery, they made a quick detour to the kitchen, heating and bringing down the last of the dishes to where most of the feast was already laid out in a small room off the dance floor on the Mezzanine level. Nash opened and poured champagne, which was Fisher's suggestion to resolve Noi and Min's positions on cutting loose during alien invasions. They would start their meal with a glass of champagne, close the evening with a single cocktail, and otherwise stick strictly to juice and soft drink. Fisher had volunteered to be 'designated driver', steering them away from any sudden impulses to play chicken with Moths.
The meal was despatched with Blue gusto, Madeleine sampling parmesan-dusted gnocchi, handmade personal pizza, and sweet potato frittata before sitting back with a sigh and deciding she was glad they'd planned a gap before any desserts.
"Gift-giving time?" Nash suggested.
"Wait, you guys went shopping?" Pan pretended amazement. "Or have the Moths started a home delivery service?"
"If you'd shut up for more than five seconds at a time you might find out," Min said, swiping casually at Pan's head. Pan ducked, but they didn't launch into their usual mock-fight since Emily was stepping up with the first present.
"This is from me and Min," she said, presenting a stuffed pillow case serving as wrapping paper.
"Thank you, Tink," Pan said, twinkling at her. "I'd say you shouldn't have, but really, a daily shower of gifts would be most..." He paused as a mass of folded black cloth spilled out of the case. "Sheet set? Caftan?" His eyes widened as he held it up, then with a delighted grin he swept it around him, a black cloak with an ornate golden fastening, and leaped up to stand on his chair. He preened and posed until Nash threw a bread roll at him, then leaped down to hug Emily.
"Totally awesome, Tink. Where the hell did you find it?"
"It really is sheets. We made it. Min did most of the work."
"Really?" Pan held out a hand, and shook Min's firmly. "Thanks, man. Appreciated."
The departure from teasing imp obviously startled Min, but he recovered and shrugged. "Something to do while sitting up on watch."
Madeleine, after careful questioning of Nash, had drawn Pan in a fictional rehearsal scene of Henry V, and offered it up to earn herself an appreciative hug.
"Someone's been spilling all my ambitions," he said, with a muted grin in Nash's direction. "You guys are too much."
Nash simply produced another pillowcase and watched with characteristic quiet enjoyment as Pan drew a slim stack of paper out and frowned down at lines of type fresh from the hotel's office printer.
"This is...?" Pan flushed bright pink, turned pages and looked up at Nash in disbelief, his cocksure edge lost to wonder. "You wrote this?"
"With a great deal of input from Fisher. It's only the first act, but something to go on with."
"The Blue Musketeers: A Play by Avinash Sharma."
Pan's voice was reverent, and it was only with difficulty that he could be distracted from an immediate read-through. Nash had inserted a Moth invasion into the plot of Dumas' adventure, tailoring the role of D'Artagnan for Pan. He admitted that he couldn't face writing anything set in the modern day.
During the chatter Noi disappeared and returned wheeling a sweet-laden trolley topped by a two-tier candlelit cake.
"I haven't anything so impressive as a play," she said, "but it's as chocolate as you asked for."
Noi was underselling herself: she'd worked on the cake in the Mezzanine floor kitchen, and produced a glossy triumph of confectionary. Pan immediately put down the script and gave the cake its due, declaring his need for an urgent injection of chocolate, bowing and flourishing his cloak as they sung to him, and lustily bellowing 'Happy Birthday to ME' before blowing out the candles.
"Thimbles all round!" he cried, and gave Noi theatrical air-kisses on each cheek, then worked his way through everyone else. He was as much Puck as Pan that evening, a breath short of wild, repaying their gift of a birthday with indefatigable high spirits, insisting on charades after cake and, when those had collapsed into helpless laughter, coaxing them all onto the dance floor to attempt the Charleston. They began to wind down after that, and moved to the restaurant so Min could create drinks with names like Tom Collins, Mint Julep and El Presidente. Emily was given a Fuzzy Navel, which Min promised had barely enough peach schnapps to taste. Madeleine sampled each, an experiment which left her pleasantly detached as they conscientiously returned to clear away the remains of their meal.
"I'll turn off the music," she said as the others pushed away laden serving trolleys, but a song she liked shuffled into play as she approached the control screen, so she turned it up instead, and revolved to slow, mournful words on the part-lit dance floor, watching for glimpses of her stars in mirrored sections of wall.
"Enjoying yo
urself?"
Holding out her hands to Fisher, she drew him close so they could turn together. "Yes. Though I think I'll stick to the mostly fruit juice drinks in future. I don't think I could shoot straight right now. Let alone avoid shield-paralysis."
Fisher smiled, though his eyes were grave and serious. "What about the third power? Do you think you could use that at the moment?"
A bubble of laughter escaped her. "Science Boy," she said, full of a boundless affection for him. Snuggled against his chest she made a valiant attempt, but it was like building a tower of mud. "Results of experiment: negative."
His arms tightened, then he tried himself, a fine thread of Fisher which made her gasp and stumble, so intense was the flood of warmth, desire, and tender concern. Underlying it were darker emotions: an ever-present note of anger and dread.
Letting the thread of connection die away, he kissed the side of her throat, voice a breathy sigh as he said: "I wish I could do more to protect you."
"I get to protect you, remember? Or try to. Super-strong."
When he didn't say anything she drew back and saw his mood wasn't one which was going to respond to spirit-fuelled quips.
"I know we're slow-dancing in the eye of the storm," she told him. "I'll remember my promise. But I'm...very happy right now Fisher."
His expression fractured, glad of her, yet somehow wounded. "I didn't want to waste a moment of this day on gloom," he said huskily.
"Then don't waste any more." She kissed him, and this time summoned fire, a response so strongly passionate she felt lucky he was holding her up.
"Maddie? Fish? You two still–? Ah." Pan stood in the doorway, trying not to look too highly entertained. "Sorry. Just came to say we're heading up, and the centre elevator's unlocked. Night."
"Lee."
Pan paused, offering Madeleine a look of polite enquiry which passed over the fact that Fisher had managed to unzip her dress and slide the straps over her shoulders to the point where it was necessary to use him as a screen.
And All the Stars Page 20
