NAYTH

  “Ryst is asleep too,” I whispered. “Do you still feel Ren’s mind? I don’t.”

  Peydran’s eyes were closed, his cheek resting on Ren’s hair. “Not his mind. His being. It’s just Ren.”

  Peydran’s eyes popped open, and he cleared his throat. “You still feel Ryst when she’s asleep?”

  “Mmm hmm. Different though. It’s not really her mind, just her presence. I think she’s always been with me, but I’m not really sure how long. Maybe for always. Do you and Ren have a casita near Ryst’s?”

  “What? Oh, no.” He looked surprised as he shook his head. “She didn’t tell you about Centre?”

  “Centre? She just showed me the casita in her mind.”

  “Heh. Is she still denying that she can see the future?”

  “Adamantly.”

  “She is so busted then. Let me tell you about the time Ryst came to my place and by asking her a few questions, I found an oasis in the desert that hadn’t been developed, and we built a small city based on the vision Ryst had. It’s tiny in comparison to the larger oases—only 150,000 people— but it’s successful, and it didn’t exist two years ago. Not until Ryst Nova had a dream that a building melted like wax, and she knew there was a home across the desert waiting for her.”

  So Peydran started talking. Filling in the gaps about what my Methela had been up to the past two years. He couldn’t stop at Centre Oasis. He jumped further back in time to his cybernetic surgery and how he learned that she was made of magic.

  And then further back when she first got to Shurwinn and thought the locals would kick her out for being nosy and how she really was the Normal Monk at a monastery, not talking to anyone and eating alone in the desert sun.

  Ryst and Ren kept sleeping, as I had known they would.

  “Your casita is really small, Nayth. I have some drawings that I worked on in the beginning, but Ryst wanted it to be small. Here—,” Peydran’s pad floated over to me and a bunch of drawings opened up.

  My eyebrows quirked up, “Convenient, Madrano.” he smirked.

  I reminded myself to forget that he could control tech with his brain; it was another secret I didn’t need to know. “Okay. Room to add a garage beneath the house? And a dojo too?”

  He nodded, “And offices and staff housing if you want. Ryst doesn’t even have a porter, Nayth. She’s successful, but she’s just really simple. It won’t be like what you’ve got here.”

  “I don’t care about that. Well, Chef Amran sounds good. Does he need anymore work? I’d love a chef.”

  “You can talk to him. He adores Ryst and takes her food all the time. And the gardener who looks after the Research and Training Centre helps out at Ryst’s too. She likes doing everything herself, but sometimes it’s too much. Everyone looks out for her, probably in part because she doesn’t expect anyone to help her, but I don’t think she really knows how much people want to look after her."

  "She’s always been stubbornly independent. She calls it being ‘introverted.’ She has interesting definitions in that head of hers,” he chuckled softly, rolling his eyes.

  “But there’s plenty of room if you want to hire full-time staff and build more buildings. There’s ten acres of woods around her place, for sand’s sakes.”

  The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  “Ren and I are remodeling the apartment above mine. Here—“ The screen in front of me switched to interior photos of an apartment, then Peydran continued, “That’s one of the apartments above the Centre. It’s three stories, and the top two stories are all apartments. Amran lives across the hall from me, but none of the other staffers wanted to live onsite. They all live in the village. So, I converted all the apartments to vacation rentals awhile back.”

  “You did these? They’re really pretty, Peydran. I like the wood flooring. And what are those walls?”

  “Thanks, yeah, I designed the whole building based on Ryst’s general descriptions. The walls are stucco, just like everywhere on Shurwinn. They’re really thick— more than a foot which helps with the temperature fluctuations of a desert climate. It gets cold at night, nothing like Sturm at all. And the thick walls are excellent sound dampeners."

  "That’s why we’re remodeling the upstairs apartment— we’re adding a recording studio for Ren, soundproof. And a general studio so he can teach students who come up from the village. The contractors are already working on it, and I hope they can finish it before we get back. Anyway, there’s room for you to store stuff and instruments or whatever you need to bring to Shurwinn. Ryst’s house is really small, so not a lot of extra storage space.”

  “Thanks,” I nodded. “Can I get copies of your sketches of the casita so I can toss around some ideas? I don’t want to do much because I think simple is better for her, but you’re right about storage, and I’d like to have a porter. I don’t need a whole lot. My staff aren’t coming with me. I don’t really need them to. I can do almost everything from a distance— that’s how it’s always been.”

  “You can live without Rahel?” he smirked.

  “Definitely not. He’s the backbone of Carmidee Hospitality and oversees everything I do for the Ministry. I can’t live without him, but I don’t need to live on the same sphere as him. For years I was traveling the Galaxy, so it doesn’t matter where I am. As long as I can access the stream, everything will be fine.”

  “You think you can handle the desert?”

  “You think I can’t?”

  “Hah. It’s so sticky here. The air is— what? Wet? How do you have wet air? You’re gonna turn into a raisin in the sun. A chocolate raisin— all dried up and wrinkly,” Peydran jabbed.

  “Hm. Hilarious, Madrano. You should see Floria. The air is so thick there that the glass in your hand gets dewy when you step outside.”

  “Ren wants to go. I think he'd like Floria.”

  “Ren will love Floria. He was made for Floria. It’s all music and passion and flowers and ocean breezes. Did you know that Florian has no words like ‘homo' or ‘hetero?'”

  Peydran sat up a little, eyebrows asking the question.

  I nodded, “There’s no ‘gay' or ‘lesbian' or ‘bi' in our language.”

  “What, so everyone’s just straight?”

  “Hah ha,” I shook my head and chuckled softly. “No. There’s no labels like ‘straight’ or ‘gay’. People are just with whoever they are with. No definitions.”

  He snorted, “I can’t tell if that’s confusing or genius. I mean, don’t you know your preferences? What’s the deal with that? Forget it, I don’t want to have this conversation without Ren. I want to know what hysterical thing he’ll say about it.”

  He started giggling to himself. “What are we going to do with the two of them? Should we tuck them into bed or something?”

  “No, I’m taking Ryst with me if she doesn’t wake up soon. You and Ren want to see the city while you’re here? You’re welcome to dine with my family, but if you want to get out, there’s plenty to do in the city.”

  “Yeah, I think so. Ren doesn’t love crowds, but I think we should do some sight seeing. Neither of us have been off sphere before. Is there an orchestra or anything like that we should see? Things Ren might like?”

  I searched through the schedule at the concert hall. “Actually,” I sent the schedule over to Peydran. “This show in two nights is the glass orchestra. I’d love to go with Ryst. Want to go— the four of us? I have a box. Borden and Nika may want to go as well. Hmm, Freya will probably want to go too. I can fit eight in my box."

  “Yeah, let’s wait and see how long Ren sleeps, but I think he’d love that, especially if Freya’s involved. We watched this reel — oh, here’s the reel—“ my pad buzzed with an incoming transmit.

  “Ren kept replaying the Freya bits so I made a clip for him just with her screaming and going all prima donna. Here’s that one.”

  I couldn’t stop laughing at my sister cursing me six ways to Sunday, “No, no! I can’t watch this, I don’t want to wake Ryst up laughing. I’ll have to watch it later.”

  “Ren wants to ask Freya what she did when you came out of the woods with Ryst looking half dead riding piggy back. Your life is weirder than mine, Nayth.”

  “Stop, stop, oh clouds, I know. It’s too bad I didn’t have a camera on Freya then. She wasn’t anywhere the security cameras could pick her up. Alright, I’m going to take Ryst home. Let me know when Ren is back with the living. I’ll tell Ryst about the glass orchestra, and I’m sure we’ll be back tomorrow night for a bedtime cuddle.”

  “Sunshine and all that, Nayth.”