Flux

pale and drawn.
    “Well, neither are you.” Ennek pointed at Miner’s wrist. Then he frowned and took a closer look at the cut on Miner’s arm. “And this is beginning to fester. You’re dehydrated, too.”
    “So are you. So much water and nothing to drink.”
    Ennek looked out over the edge of the boat and frowned in concentration. “I’ll wager I could remove the salt,” he said, almost to himself.
    “You’ve already made yourself sick enough doing magic,” Miner protested.
    But Ennek ignored him. He knelt and leaned over the side, scooping up a double handful of sea. Then his frown deepened for a moment and he brought his hands to his face. He sipped cautiously at the liquid and then grinned triumphantly. “It worked! Come here.”
    Miner considered arguing but decided that would be pointless. He scooted around until he was next to Ennek, also along the side of the boat.
    “Get some water,” Ennek said.
    Miner stole a glance over the edge and imagined himself hanging over as Ennek had just done. “I…I can’t.”
    Ennek gave him a patient smile. “That’s all right. It probably wouldn’t have worked with your wrist anyway. Hang on.” He leaned over again and brought up more water. “Drink it before it drips away.”
    Miner leaned down and put his lips above Ennek’s palms. It was a strangely intimate thing to do, to drink from someone else’s cupped hands. But the water tasted only a bit brackish and it felt wonderful as it moistened his tongue and throat. He drank it all and then Ennek gave him another handful and another, and he would have kept on going but Miner saw him begin to sway and noticed the way his breaths became harsher; Miner stopped him. “Drink some yourself,” he insisted.
    Ennek managed to drink only two handfuls before he collapsed.
    “Don’t you dare throw up that water!” Miner said anxiously, moving Ennek’s head into his lap.
    “Trying not to.”
    Miner rubbed gently at Ennek’s temple. He didn’t know if would help, but he doubted it would hurt; and he felt so useless, just sitting there like a great, timid lump. Ennek closed his eyes and Miner thought he might have fallen asleep. But then ten or fifteen minutes later, he opened them again. “This is a stupid way to die.”
    “My Great-Aunt Sernia walked in her sleep. She was especially bad after she’d had a few cups of wine. She used to wake up all sorts of strange places but she refused to allow anyone to lock her in at night. And then one New Year she wandered outside before dawn and she somehow made her way over to Argentum Road. Is that road still there?”
    “Yes.”
    “And so steep it has stairs?”
    “It still has stairs.”
    “Sernia fell down them. Broke her neck. That was a stupid way to die.”
    Ennek managed a dry chuckle. “It does sound pointless. But still, here we are. Floating like driftwood. We escaped from Thelius and Praesidium and the pirates and now we just shrivel up? We’ve had so little time together, and I wanted to see the world with you. I want…I don’t want you to die with that damned collar on.” His voice had become so thin and weak it was difficult for Miner to hear him.
    “It doesn’t matter.” He gently pressed a fingertip to Ennek’s cracked lips. “I love you.”
    Ennek’s lips twitched in a ghost of his rare and beautiful smile. “Nobody’s ever said that to me before,” he whispered. His eyelids closed and his breathing became slow and shallow.
    Miner scooted into a slightly more comfortable position and tipped his head back. The sun had sunk below the horizon and the sky above was a rich black, so deep and so full of twinkling lights that he had a moment of vertigo, feeling as if he might somehow fall upward into space. He’d never paid much attention to the night sky before—it was usually too foggy in Praesidium to see much in any case—and he was overwhelmed by the size of it. Ennek told him that sailors used the stars to navigate, and although Miner didn’t know the art of that, he could make out patterns if he tried. He recalled a story Ennek had heard once from foreign sailors about a pair of lovers who had run away from the woman’s cruel and vengeful husband, and who had, in desperation, thrown themselves from a cliff. But the gods had taken pity on them and sent them up to the heavens where they became a pair of stars, forever shining through the night together.
    Miner was still trying to find the twin stars when he fell