But Iris could see the stiffness in Marisol’s shoulders, as if she were weary of holding herself upright. As if she knew the long flight was just beginning, and they were all soaring toward the boiling eye of the storm.
* * *
Tobias drove the girls into Oath. They left behind the sea of tents and mud-riddled roads for the brick and cobblestone of the city. It felt strange to return, and even stranger that Oath didn’t truly feel like home anymore.
They reached Iris’s flat first. She climbed from the roadster, glancing down at the dents in the door that her knees had made. She still had the bruises to prove it, to remind herself that chilling run from Hawk Shire had happened.
“Inkridden Tribune tomorrow?” Attie said.
“Tomorrow,” Iris agreed, thinking how odd it would be to return to confined work in a building after they had been roaming the realm in a fast car, sleeping in unusual places, and dodging bloodthirsty hounds.
“Can I carry your luggage up?” Tobias asked, holding her typewriter case in one hand, her duffel bag in the other.
“Oh, no, I can handle it. But thank you, Tobias.” Iris took the luggage from him. “I hope I see you again soon?”
“I’m sure you’ll see me around,” he said with a hint of a grin.
Iris glanced at Attie, who acted like she hadn’t heard him. But Iris found herself smiling into the shadows as she hurried up the flight of stairs to her flat door. It wasn’t fully dark, although the rain was ushering in an early dusk, and she imagined Forest wasn’t home yet.
He would be surprised to see her. Iris found the hidden key, tucked behind a loose stone in the lintel. She unlocked the door, waving to Tobias and Attie to let them know she was good. The roadster drove away with a puff of exhaust, heading to Attie’s town house near the university side of the city.
Iris stepped inside the dim flat.
She had been right. She was the first home and she knocked the rain from her boots and jacket and set down her luggage. As she turned on a few lamps, she was struck by how clean and tidy it felt. How the flat smelled different. Not in a bad way, but she stood for a moment in the center of the room and breathed it all in, wondering if home had always held this strange scent and she had simply grown accustomed to it in the past.
“Not that it matters,” she whispered, hurrying to shed her damp clothes for a sweater and a pair of brown trousers, and to unpack her typewriter on the kitchen table.
But she noticed a vase of daisies, brightening the room, and two bottles of medicine on the sideboard, prescribed to Forest. She felt a wash of relief to know her brother had finally gone to the doctor.
Iris had set a kettle to boil and was beginning to type an equally heated article about the chancellor barring Enva’s forces from the city when the front doorknob squeaked.
She paused.
It must be her brother, and she was both excited and anxious to see him again. Iris stood and reached for the locket, hiding beneath her sweater, and held on to it as the door swung open.
There was a shuffle, a low curse as someone tripped and dropped a baguette wrapped in bakery paper.
Iris stepped forward, eyes widening. This person was too short and slender to be Forest, and as they threw back the hood of their raincoat and struggled to keep the other parcels in hand, Iris took in their light-colored hair, frizzy from the rain, and the endearing flash of glasses on their nose.
Iris stopped upright.
It was truly the last person she expected to see stepping into her flat.
“Prindle?”
{29}
Fifth-Floor Signals
Sarah Prindle froze. Her mouth formed a perfect O before she cried, “Winnow? I’m glad you’re back! We weren’t expecting you home so soon!”
We? Iris thought with a shock down her spine, but she seamlessly hurried forward to take the packages from Sarah’s arms. They were heavy and warm—a fragrant dinner—and Iris set them on the kitchen table beside the typewriter before turning back around to hang up Sarah’s rain-dappled coat.
“Do you know when Forest will be home?” Iris tentatively asked, feeling uncertain of things, like she was a stranger in her own home.
Sarah picked up the fallen baguette before she removed her foggy glasses, wiping them on the edge of her skirt. “Should be home any minute. Usually he arrives before me, and—” She cut herself off with an awkward grimace. “I’m sorry, I know this must seem terribly odd.”
“It’s okay, Prindle,” Iris said. “Truly. I take it you and my brother are an item now?”
Sarah flushed scarlet. “No! I mean to say … maybe. If he asked me. But no. I honestly didn’t expect any of this to happen.”