Chapter 4: The Owner's Suite

The owner's suite was on the top deck, behind a pair of brass doors nobody had opened since the Rise.

Veda opened them with the master key she had taken off a sleeping steward's belt.

Inside, there was a living room with a curved window the width of the ship.

Beyond it lay a bedroom with a bed the size of a small boat, and a bathroom with a tub big enough for two.

Grey daylight lay across the carpet.

She carried Tobias in, because he had refused to be wheeled.

"Put me down," he said into her collar. "I can walk."

"You can't."

"I can walk about three feet."

"Then you've got three feet to spend on the bed."

She lowered him onto the mattress and pulled a silk cover over his legs.

He lay looking up at the ceiling, pale, breathing carefully, and then looked at her.

"Veda. This is a suite for a person who owns a cruise line."

"Then it's yours."

"There are nine hundred people sleeping on ballroom floors."

"And you were coughing blood on a corridor carpet last night."

He opened his mouth, and she held up a hand.

"I've got a rule," she said. "You carry nothing. Not a blanket, not a bag, not a spoon. I carry everything."

"That's a ridiculous rule."

"It's the only one I've got."

His mouth twitched.

She went into the bathroom and ran the tub.

The water was lukewarm, and she added every little bottle of lavender and sea salt from the basket by the taps.

When she came back, he was trying to sit up, shaking with the effort.

She put her hands under his arms and lifted.

He let her.

That was the thing she noticed.

He had always been proud, even sick.

He let her take his weight.

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