Page 122 of Tempt

I wish I could speak to Dante or even Everest. I want to ask someone. But the way Lucie is blinking wildly, I don’t think he feels the same about Dhoryn, or if he does, it’s not reciprocated. They’re not bonded like Eissa and I are.

Lucie swipes at his eyes, and I reach out and squeeze his knee. ‘How about we go see what they’re talking about?’

‘They won’t like that. Dhoryn said they needed to speak privately and to not disturb them.’

I wriggle in my seat. ‘They don’t have to know we’re watching…listening,’ I correct.

Lucie’s eyes widen. ‘You mean spy?’

‘Yes. I know where they’re chatting. Maybe you can hear them through the walls? I know Gerald made a hole in one of them two days ago. I put a chair over one side and a plant over the other, so Eissa wouldn’t see it.’

Lucie’s eyes are nearly popping out of his head. ‘Are you serious?’

‘Yes. I want to know what they’re talking about. You can listen and interpret…’ My heart is beating frantically in my chest, and then it suddenly drops when I realize how ridiculous this all is. They won’t be speaking English. They’ll be speaking in their own language. One I can’t lip-read and one I’m sure Lucie doesn’t know.

‘What’s wrong?’ he asks, and I shake my head.

‘Never mind. They won’t be speaking in a language we can understand.’

Lucie shifts on his seat and looks a little sheepish. I clock it almost immediately.

‘What?’ I ask, and he shrugs.

‘I may know some. I’ve been getting lessons. But you can’t tell anyone. Not even Eissa. This is my secret, my superpower. I don’t want to give it away.’

‘Who’s teaching you?’

‘I can’t say, but…I know enough to know what the Vyastil are saying when they talk in front of me. It’s hard to form the words, but I can hear it and understand.’

‘How long have you been practicing?’

‘Since I arrived.’ He rolls his lips between his teeth and peers up at me. ‘Can you keep a secret?’

I nod, and he glances around before signing softly, ‘Sometimes I can hear his thoughts…it helps with learning the language.’

My eyes widen, and I almost blurt that I can do the same with Eissa, but I don’t. I hold it inside. ‘Does Dhoryn know you can read his mind?’

He shakes his head and then shrugs. ‘I don’t know. How can he not know I’m in there? If he does know, he pretends he doesn’t.’

I can almost feel his sadness from where I sit. ‘I won’t tell anyone.’

He looks relieved.

I stand up, almost knocking into the small table that is suddenly in front of me. Gerald must have moved it while I wasn’t paying attention, and I hold out my hand to Lucie. ‘Come on. Let’s spy.’

His hand lands in mine and we’re off.

I find the hole in the wall that Gerald made and move the plant aside as noiselessly as possible. It clings to the remains of the wall it’s grown around, but we’re able to maneuver it away enough.

Then Lucie and I crouch down near it, and he puts his ear as close to it as possible. The plant reaches out and touches his cheek gently before Lucie carefully swats it away. I’m riveted, watching him intently as he listens. I want to know what he hears, want him to interpret right away, but I’m not sure that’s possible. Trilingual interpreting can’t be easy. He has to process the words from Eretharian to English to ASL, a complicated process.

I let him sit there undisturbed, my heart beating frantically in my throat.

If we’re caught, I could be in trouble. Or even worse, end up more of a disappointment than I fear I already am. But a few minutes later, Lucie lifts his hands to relay what he heard.

‘They were talking about us. It was the end of a longer conversation, I believe, but I did hear your name and mine. But then they switched to something else. Something about a Tarek and a rebellion.’

‘What?’ My eyes go wide. He can’t possibly be talking about the rebellion on Earth…can he?