“On land or in the water?”
“Assume you’ve gotten them back to land.”
“If they aren’t breathing, turn their head to the side so the water drains out, start mouth-to-mouth, and steal their wallet.”
Bastian chuckled. “Close enough. Describe two kinds of drowning behavior.”
“Well, there’s the struggling sort, and the bobbing sort. Plus the being dragged under by tentacles sort, but you hardly ever see that this close to shore.”
“What would you do with a hysterical swimmer in the water?”
“Sing them to calmness before I even attempted to get close.”
Bastian flipped a few more page. “We can skip that part, then. And the bit about how long you can hold your breath and dive.”
“Do we get to practice the mouth-to-mouth?” Saina asked, feeling suddenly mischievous.
She regretted the joke as tasteless as Bastian looked up too quickly and then winced as his head caught up with the motion.
“You need an aspirin,” Saina told him.
“About seven of them,” Bastian agreed. “But let’s get this finished.”
Together, they flipped through the rest of the manual, and Saina convinced him that she knew the material well enough.
She demonstrated basic swimming strokes in the pool and showed him rescue carries with a floating mattress.
“You’re qualified,” Bastian said at last, closing the book and flinching at the sound of it. “I’ll sign for it.”
Saina dried herself off with one of the fluffy pool towels and frowned at him.
“Let’s go get you that aspirin,” she said.
She led him down the path to the staff house, where the sign on the door had been further annotated “House of Hooligans” and “Stud House.” Both were crossed out.
By the time Saina got Bastian up the stairs, he was staggering badly.
“You poor thing,” she said as he fumbled with the lock. “Let’s get you into bed.”
“I like that idea,” he said in a low rumble.
Saina paused in the doorway. “I… I can help you,” she offered. “But only if you want me to.”
“How do you mean?” Bastian asked sensibly.
“I can rub your shoulders,” Saina said hesitantly. Could she really do that without wanting to touch more? “And I can try to sing more of the goldshot from you.”
“I’d like that,” Bastian said gravely.
Saina made him take four aspirin with an entire glass of water, drew him down onto the bed and kissed his forehead, then
took his shirt off carefully.
It was hard not to linger over the muscles of his arms, she wanted nothing more than to kiss down his chest, but Saina made herself stay to her goal. She sat chastely behind him on the bed and began kneading the knots from his shoulders and neck.
He groaned in pleasure as Saina found all the tightest places and applied siren-strong fingers to unwinding them. She hummed as she worked, cautiously letting her magic loosen all the tension from his body and leach what she could of the remaining poison from his blood.
When she was done, he turned abruptly and gathered her into his arms.