It’s been a long, lonely winter under that rock. From behind a broken chunk of coral, a slender orange antennae waved in the murky gloom. Maddie peered hard at the tank, breathless with anticipation. She didn’t know which of them was the more frustrated. So had Rex, the male specimen in the tank. She’d been waiting months for Fluffy, the female, to molt and declare herself available to mate. When it came to courtship, however, lobsters were the most prudish and formal of all. And she had a great deal of experience observing the mating rituals of many strange and wondrous creatures, from English aristocrats to cabbage moths. She knew how to fade into the background, be it drawing-room wallpaper, ballroom wainscoting, or the plastered-over stone of Lannair Castle. She set aside her pen, lifted her head just enough for a clear view of the glass-walled seawater tank, and went still. Her delicate Brazilian dragonfly now resembled a leprous chicken.īut it would be nothing if those bubbles signified what she hoped. Ink sputtered from her pen, making great blots on the wing structure she’d been outlining.
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