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I have to dry the sweat already rolling down my face as Numair digs in his pocket and stretches his hand out with a flower pendant hanging from his metal fingers. “It must have fallen when we met back in that alley. I’ve repaired the clasp.”
I reach for my neck even if I can see the necklace is in front of me. I knew I lost it, but I wasn’t sure when.
“Thank you,” I murmur, picking up the pendant. “This means a lot.”
The metal is already burning from the summer heat, blistering the skin on my fingertips, and I shove it in my pocket, not eager to put it around my neck. It seemed to be a vestige of my life before the train attack. Before I became a rebel. I startle at the thought. Numair has already called me a Rebel Princes, but uttering those words even in my mind doesn’t feel the same.
Rebel Princess.
Would I ever be worthy of carrying that title?
“Why do you wear it?” Numair asks.
I know it’s a trinket cheaper than a single meal not worthy of a princess who should shine with gold and jewels, but a man has paid with his life to offer it to me.
“It was a gift.”
“No, I meant— “
He never finishes his thought. A door groans, and Lara emerges from the abandoned building.
“I thought I heard voices,” she says, pulling me in for a kiss on each cheek.
“Hey, buddy,” Numair says, ruffling her hair.
Lara clears her throat, looking at anything but him. Before Numair can embarrass himself further, I loop my arm through Lara’s. “You’ve proved yourself to be a perfect guide back at The King’s Refuge, so what about a tour of this place?”
The nod Lara offers me is absent-minded as she stands transfixed by Numair. Oblivious to her stare, he’s working to loosen the knots in the rope holding down the fabric covering a large batch of supplies at the back. Hefting one bag over his broad shoulders, he jumps down and walks by us with a silly bow.
If anyone wasn’t aware that we’ve arrived, they are now that Numair pulls open the door, and it groans loudly enough to drag someone from Livith’s domain of oblivion. We slip after him into the halls with broken machines and sand piling up at the feet of the dust-covered tables.
“What was this place?”
“A research laboratory. At least that’s what it says on the plaque at the entrance. There were more words once, but sand has erased them since.”
As we walk deeper into the long-abandoned building disturbed only by rebels, Lara sighs and flips her braid from one shoulder to the other.
“What is it?” I ask.
She stops and crinkles her nose, making the freckles dance on her skin. “Do you think he likes me?”
“Who?”
“Numair.”
As if hearing his name, he stops at the end of the hall, carrying a heavy set of tools. The tie at the back of his neck has come undone, his long hair falling over his eyes. He brushes it back with his metal hand and sends us a dazzling smile before disappearing at the back from where all the voices seem to come.
“I think he’s just blind,” I say with a shrug. “Or maybe stupid.” When a smile shows on Lara’s lips, I add, “Yes, I’ll settle on that. Very stupid.”
“Stop,” she says with a giggle, and hops onto a table with old machinery sitting next to mysterious tools and an assortment of glass vials. “Tell me about you and Valdus.”
After the fight the other day, I’m not sure he’ll even want to see me again. Even less talk to me. I’ve let the things devolve this way, but Lara has no business poking her nose into it.
“I don’t know why you won’t stop asking about him,” I say, narrowing my gaze. “There is nothing between the two of us.”
I start down the hall, marking this subject closed, but Lara catches with me a few steps away from the door through which Numair has disappeared.
“I just thought…” My glare doesn’t seem to be enough to cut her short. “I thought there was something between you two. With the way you danced back in The King’s Refuge and all.”
