The only upside to being indispensable? I’m almost certain Sereme won’t fatally maim me for the transgression. Just rough me up until she feels like she’s got control again.
The usual shit.
Essi’s chair grinds against the floor as I gulp my belly full of water, draining the mug before I place it in the basin and grab a band off the counter, using it to pull my heavy hair back into a high updo.
The silence grows prickly and needles me from behind.
I turn.
Essi’s no longer facing her project. She’s facing me, hands on her knees, eyes wide and brimming with worry. A look that impales me through the chest so hard I feel it poke out the other side.
“Stop,” I growl. “Don’t look at me like that.”
Why is she looking at me like that?
Her eyes gloss over with a sheen of sadness that’s so much worse. “Raeve, I can’t lose you—”
“We don’t do this, Essi. We work just fine the way we are. Don’t break something that’s not broken.”
Her brows pinch together as she opens her mouth, but nothing comes out. Like the words are too big to wrestle free.
Good. They should stay in. I don’t want her to tell me she’s worried. That she cares. I don’t want to say those same words back to her.
The folk I care about die.
“The point is moot, anyway.” I spin, rinsing my mug and plate in the basin, eyes firmly cast on the task. “I can’t go to the Undercity until I receive a lark signaling the all clear.” I dry both bits of crockery, put them away, then move to the trough and gather my things. “I’m exhausted. I’ll get these stupid feathers off my lashes, catch some rest, then collect your spangle shit once I receive a lark from Sereme. Deal?”
She doesn’t answer.
When the stretch of silence grows too loud, I spin, looking into her big, tear-filled eyes.
Shit.
“Deal, Essi?”
Lips pinched into a thin line, she nods—the slow beat of a reluctant agreement.
I make for the trapdoor that leads to my suite and lift the hatch, stilling halfway down the steps when Essi’s words impale me like a blade thrown between my ribs, wedging deep. “I don’t like Sereme any more than you do, but for once, I think you should listen to her. Please, Raeve. I ne—” She sighs, pausing before she throws another verbal dagger, this one knocking the breath right out of me. “You’re the only family I have.”
I squeeze my lips so tight together I’m surprised they don’t fuse.
Essi’s broken. Actually, this entire cycle’s broken. I need to close the cover on it and flip a new one—a normal one—where folk stop voicing their concerns for my well-being and calling me family. I don’t get nice things like that without a price tag too heavy for me to pay.
“Please don’t go to the Undercity without me. You know I hate it when you go down there alone.” I step out of her line of sight, swinging the trapdoor back into place with a heavy clunk.
My suite is sparse compared to the rest of our living space, the only decoration aside from a single piece of wall art being the moons I’ve drawn upon my otherwise unpainted ceiling with bits of coal. Essi’s never asked why, though by the way this dae is going, it wouldn’t surprise me if she charged down here and dumped the question at my feet like a steaming pile of spangle shit.
“Dammit,” I mutter, lumping my stuff on the ground. I release a heavy sigh, casting my low-lidded stare on my twill pallet stretched across the ground by the large window that dominates my southern wall.
No stuffy blankets or pillows. Just a comfortable space to curl up and pass out. Something I want to do right now, but if I don’t pick these feathers off, I’ll wake up looking like a scraggly Moltenmaw midmolt, missing sprigs of my lashes.
Been there. Done that.
“Don’t be lazy, Raeve. Deal with your shit.”
I scoop my things off the floor again and move through to my dressing space tucked behind the back wall, hanging my gown, pulling my daggers free from all the hidden compartments like plucking a bird of its plumage. I shelve them all except the one I keep strapped to my thigh, checking my skinsuit for blood. Finding none, I decide it’s fine to sleep in and hone the dregs of my energy into scrubbing my boots, removing the damn feathers and taking care of my business, battling through a yawn as I step back into my sleepsuite.
I pause before a flat piece of stone hanging on the wall, carved to look like a nesting Moonplume. Easing it aside, I reach into the hole behind, retrieve a small wooden box that I carry to my pallet, placing it beside the window.