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any, sex drive she had.
    She wished that she could call the Destroyer to find out what she had learned, but communication between them was not encouraged. She had tried.
    Vexa read the details, flicking the pages through with her left hand. Her right was being held by Burn, and they were quietly exchanging heat and energy.
    It was a sort of exchange that had become comforting for her. She was used to him touching her at any time, and he took every opportunity to be in contact with her that he could manage. She enjoyed it. It was proof that she wasn’t still alone on Ki, fantasizing about a life that she couldn’t have.
     
     

 
     
     
    Chapter Eight
     
     
    The air was icy and the accommodations primitive, but Vexa was enjoying herself. Burn was doing a lot of the bulk melting, and Elemental was being called on for the detail work.
    The art of giving heat to the ice was assisted with Burn at her back. With a crew of archaeologists standing by to grab and catalogue the treasures, it was a slow and labour-intensive process.
    “Careful, careful.” The professor was flapping his hands in agitation.
    Vexa sighed. “We have been over this, Professor. Burn is powering me, and I am simply giving heat to the ice. We are not heating the artefacts.”
    He scowled at her. His downy features were fluffed against the cold and his beak was clicking in a stuttering rhythm.
    She completed the melt of the desktop, and the archaeologists went to work. With an instinct that the investigation was starting in her blood, she thawed the desk drawers and tugged one open.
    Smiling at the contents, she stepped aside and let the professor dip his hands in to remove a stack of journals.
    His hands were shaking as he held them, and an assistant offered him a bag to put them in. All the objects were being taken to a drying room and slowly being dehydrated to bring them back to identifiable life.
    The sun was casting everything with a burgundy glow, so it was time to call a halt to the day’s festivities.
    “Time to call it a night, Professor. We will be back here bright and early unless we are called to an emergency.” It was the same every night. Burn called a halt, the professor squawked and, in the end, everyone went to dinner.
    They had decided early on that Novice Storic should have the shuttle as her private quarters. Neither Vexa nor Burn noted the cold.
    Vexa walked into her private dome and shrugged into the long robes of her status as a Specialist with the Citadel. Burn wore his, and they walked into the dining area full of academics abuzz with the discoveries of the day.
    It made her laugh, these folk that were excited about things that happened hundreds of years earlier.
    “You are laughing at them again, aren’t you?” Burn grinned.
    “I am. Hundreds of years is such a funny concept to me. I spent longer than that trying to get my hair to stay flat after I washed it.” She snorted.
    He suddenly sobered. “Do you think you will live forever? I mean, barring disaster.”
    Vexa looked into his face and saw what she wanted for her future. “I will live as long as you do. After that, I don’t think there would be any point.”
    Burn smiled. “I will take that as an agreement to pursue more in-depth courtship.”
    She cocked her head. “Enjel or Dhemon?”
    “Enjel for the most part with Dhemon waiting until we are back on Arcani or a friendlier situation.” He took one of her hands and pressed it to his lips. “Just be lucky that I am not insisting on the Leap of Faith . We both would lose there.”
    Sobering, she stroked his cheek. “I can fly if I have to, so yes, we would both lose.”
    The idea of an Enjel female jumping off a cliff with her wings tied so that her husband-to-be could catch her was an ancient ritual saved for the most dedicated of partners. It proclaimed to any and all that no one else had a chance with either party.
    The Dhemon courtship was more basic. The male seduced the female, got her agreement,