Maki's purr shook the terrarium hard enough that Bartholomew stopped, reassessed his position on the glass, and continued upward. Immortality had given him a magnificent indifference to noise. I envied him. I envied a snail. That was where we were.
Emi's head dropped onto my shoulder somewhere around seven twenty.
She fought it first. Her whole body did that hitch thing where she jerked upright and blinked too fast and said something about needing to log the eight hour sweep in the notebook. Her hand was still on my thigh. Her aura was gone, burned down to nothing, and without it she was a girl with flour on her face and dried blood under her nails who had spent six hours holding a broken thing together with her bare will.
"Emi."
"I'm awake."
"You blinked for four seconds."
"That's a normal blink."
"That's a nap with extra steps."
