“What’s that?” Tam lifted Luna’s hand and studied her wrist. “You still have a nexus?”

“Um… yeah…” she nodded. “A nexus.” The word was foreign on her tongue, and she didn’t like not knowing about any of this elf culture. Her culture.

He looked at her closely. “It helps you sleep, right?” he asked carefully.

She nodded. “Yep,” she agreed breezily, thinking she was so clever.

“Huh.” Something passed over Tam’s face, but it was gone before Luna could look closely. He released her hand and gestured around. “Anyway, here we are. After you,” he pointed at a rock.

Maybe coming had been a bad idea. She strolled past him and crouched beside the boulder. Was that Atlantis? It didn’t seem very… shoppy. Then she saw a hairline crack that ran around it, with a few holes that looked like grips. She edged in her fingers and lifted off the top, revealing a great amount of glass jars with swirling water inside. A smug grin spread onto her face. She picked up two jars and closed the rock.

“We only need one,” Tam said from behind her.

Yep, Luna totally knew that. Once she’d stood up again, she handed him the jar. He walked over to the cliff’s edge and tossed it over. Where the jar was swallowed by sea water, a whirlpool began to form, and Tam grabbed Luna’s hand again.

“Ready?” he asked.

She shrugged. She wasn’t scared of heights—she jumped off cliffs all the time so she could Teleport. What she didn’t appreciate was all the hand-holding.

“On three,” Tam started. “One—”

“Three,” Luna said. She jumped off the edge, pulling him with her. He let out a startled yelp and his grip on her hand tightened. The void tugged at Luna’s consciousness, but she ignored it. Tam had a trick up his sleeves, and she trusted him to get them where they were going safely.

Well… sort of.

Wind whipped her face and Tam shouted at her to take a deep breath. The water rushed up towards her, and then—

Luna was encased in a ticklish swarm of white bubbles, and she was being dragged down,

down,

down…

Instinct told her she should swim up, get back to the surface, but before she could decide what to do, she fell out of the water and into a weird sponge… thing.

Luna stood up and stumbled out, reaching to wring water out of her hair, but it was… dry. Weird. She looked around and took in her surroundings. Big, sparkly buildings were everywhere, and the streets were made up of sand and sea stones. It was like a giant bubble of land underwater.

“C’mon,” Tam walked up to her and nodded towards the road. “Let’s go.”

As Luna followed, she felt like she should say something. She’d never really had to make pleasant conversation (emphasis on pleasant, because she’s made different conversation before, and quite recently, too), so she said the first thing that came to her mind, which happened to be,

“I thought you were trying to drown me.”

“Oh,” Tam scratched his neck. “Sorry about that. You’ve—you’ve never been to Atlantis before?”

“No.” Luna didn’t see any good coming from lying.

He nodded. “Right. Well, take it in! This is the biggest underwater city in—” muffled hysterical laughter rang out, and Tam reached into his pocket and retrieved a square gadget. He had been smiling a little before, but now he glared into the device and collected shadows around himself. He tapped the screen.

“Hey, Bangs Boy!” A voice and face that were familiar but not familiar enough came onto the tiny screen. “Whatcha doing?”

Tam only glared.

“Right. Not too talkative, are we, Shady Mc Shade?” Luna saw the blond-haired boy she’d called Gremlin nod. “Well. What’s an astronaut’s favorite part of the keyboard?”

Tam furrowed his brows. “I wasn’t aware astronauts had a—”

“The SPACE bar!” Gremlin exclaimed.

Tam was quiet for a moment. “Don’t ever hail me again.”

“I love ya too, Tammy Boy,” Gremlin was able to say before Tam hung up on him.

“Hm. Wasn’t a bad joke, you know,” Luna shrugged. “But… what was that laughter?”

“It’s Keefe’s ringtone,” Tam started walking again. “The sound of his laughter makes me so irritated, I can mentally prepare to deal with him. It was his idea, actually.”

“Weird.”

Luna and Tam continued walking until they found a shop selling things that smelled… even better than the things Luna’s stolen from the gnomes did. They wandered in and she stared at the pastries hungrily. She hadn’t eaten that morning, which had played a part in her minimal tolerance for the elves. Her stomach growled at the thought of food. They floated around the store together, and Luna didn’t pay much attention to Tam. She had to focus too hard on not stealing.

“Hey, I’ll be right back, okay?” Tam lifted a little woven basket. “I’m just going to go pay for this.”

“Mm,” Luna mumbled. She perused the shelves for a bit after he’d left, observing the different foods. She rounded a corner and—

“Whoa!” She leaped back, narrowly avoiding collision with a tall, brown-haired boy.

“Whoa,” he repeated, but in a softer tone. What Luna didn’t know, having lived away from society for so long, was that she was very pretty, even for an elf. Her long blond hair fell in ringlets along her back, shining in the sunlight, and her green eyes flecked with gold were a spectacle, to say the least. “Did it hurt?” the boy asked her.

She furrowed her brows.

“When you fell?” He took a step towards her, and she stepped back.

“When I fell?” Luna repeated.

“From heaven.” The boy was uncomfortably close now, and the way he looked at her made her skin crawl. (He was really three feet away, but Luna wasn’t used to this sort of proximity.)

“Wow, are you the sun?” Luna put her hands on his chest. “Because I want to stay 200 million kilometers away from you.” She pushed him as hard as she could, and he fell over.

“‘Did it hurt’,” she muttered, stomping away. “Tam!” Luna shook the boy’s shoulders from behind. “I want to leave this shop,” she shot a glance in the direction she’d come from. “Boys are disturbing.”

“W—what?” He followed her gaze but only saw some shelves. (The boy was still on the floor, presumably questioning his life’s choices.)

“Oh, um, please.” Luna added the word she hadn’t needed to use in a long time. “Please can we go.”

“Yeah, I don’t like sticking around crowds either.” He hefted the basket in one arm and they wandered around the streets of Atlantis. They found a big patch of sand that was mostly unoccupied and sat in one of the benches scattered around the park. As soon as they did, Luna started eating.

She was so.

Incredibly.

Starving.

She noticed that Tam’s eyes were still on her, and for some reason it made her feel…

Annoyed. Very annoyed. And so she picked up something called a butterblast and threw it at him, hoping to get him on the shoulder. But she missed. Luna frowned. She’d have to work on improving her aim. “Hey! Tam.”

“Yeah?”

“Stop staring at me.”

His face turned a dark shade of red as he turned away.

Luna ate a while longer, and then sought conversation. “Tam.”

“Yeah?”

“What’s the deal with Sun—I mean, Wylie? Why did he, you know, capture me?”

Tam tugged on his bangs and and shrugged. “I’m not sure, since I wasn’t there. I guess you looked suspicious?”

“Hm. And the brown-eyed girl,” Luna added sourly. “What’s her deal?”

“Oh, you mean Sophie?”

“Yeah.”

“What about her?”

“Why’s she so… obnoxious?”

Tam snorted. “She isn’t so bad. She was just frustrated that she couldn’t get into your mind.”

“She got under my skin, that’s for sure,” Luna muttered. Tam laughed. Huh. His laugh made her feel… less annoyed. Funny. “So, what is she? The Black Swan’s Moonlark?”

Tam nodded. “Why?”

“No reason.” Luna kicked at the sand, frustrated. Not only was her older sister replacing her, but Luna also thought she was the most annoying creature to walk the earth.

“Hey, you!” Luna snapped to attention and saw three girls in the distance holding a ball that looked like it was made of jelly. They were looking in her direction… no. They were looking at her.

“Wanna play?” A girl with black hair hefted the ball in the air.

“They are talking to me, right?” Luna asked Tam.

He nodded.

She hesitated. “Should I… go over there?”

He shrugged. “If you want. I wouldn’t.”

“Oh. Oh!” Luna smiled as an idea formed. “Great! See you later!” She stood and ran over to the girls.

“Is your boyfriend coming?” The girl holding the ball asked.

“Who, Tam? No,” Luna shook her head. That was actually the main reason she’d come over to play their game. He was watching her too closely. After a quick game of… whatever this was, she’d get back to land and Teleport away.

Far away.

“He doesn’t like people,” Luna told them.

“Does he know that?” A red-haired girl was looking behind her. She turned and saw that Tam had gotten up and was walking towards them.

Dang it.

“Hey,” he said quietly, standing by Luna like a shadow. “I’m Tam.”

“Elidi,” the red-head smiled.

“Ira,” the girl flipped her black hair.

“Calypso,” a girl with purple hair introduced herself.

“Luna.”

“Great! Now that introductions are behind us,” Elidi took the ball from Ira, “let’s explain the game. It’s pretty easy to play.”

The game was catch, essentially, except instead of trying to throw it into someone’s hands, you had to try to make it pop on them. Luna was fairly good at this game.

But Tam was better. He said he’d had lots of time to practice his Telekinesis, but he was just, ugh. Way too good.

“So, do you two go to Foxfire?” Calypso asked. They had been playing for a long time, and they had all collapsed onto the sand to take a break.

“Uh… yes?” Luna panted. She felt a little bit bad when the girls’ faces lit up.

“That’s great!” Calypso grinned. “We can talk during lunch tomorrow.”

A part if Luna wanted to come clean then and there, and tell them the truth. But that would be stupid, so she didn’t.

“Oh, boy, look at the time.” Luna pointed at the water above them. It was darker than it had been earlier, and she thought that time would be a great excuse to leave without causing much of a fuss. “I should be getting home now…” her voice was quiet, and she trailed off a little. She had actually enjoyed the hours she’d spent with Tam, Elidi, Ira and Calypso. It was… fun. She’d been surviving on her own for a long time now, but today she’d lived.

“Okay. Bye!” the girls chorused. “See you around!”

Tam was standing already, and he offered Luna his hand to help her up. By now, she understood what it meant every time his palm was shown to her. It meant she should grab it, and he would take her along with him.

She kind of liked it. Yet another thing she’d miss once she left. Her mood was somber as she and Tam walked through the streets. (They weren’t holding hands, much to Luna’s disappointment.) Finally, they reached a geyser and got into a line.

“What’s this all about?” Luna asked, snapping to attention.

“The geyser emits oxygen-filled bubbles,” Tam explained. “You get into one, and it floats you up to the surface. Cool, right?”

“I guess.”

A Psionipath and a Hydrokinetic were standing by the geyser, helping people into the bubbles. Eventually, Tam and Luna got into one, and they started floating slowly up to the surface.

“Luna.” It was the first time Tam had used her name, and it made her heart do weird things in her chest.

“Yeah?”

His silvery-blue eyes bored into her own with a chilling intensity, and it made her uneasy. “There’s something you’re not telling me.”