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“How do you know what the problem is?”
“She wanted my advice a year or so ago, told me all of it. Apparently, since I grew up mostly in the city, I am supposed to be open-minded and free-thinking.”
“I would say you are both of those things.”
“Yes, but it has nothing to do with growing up in the city.”
She heard the celebration when they were still well away from the common building—music playing and the boisterous sounds of merriment.
“If you need a break from it all, let me know. Or if you want to leave, let me know that, too.”
She clenched her hands, glad they were hidden in her coat pockets. “What do we do?”
“Whatever we want. Eat. Drink. Dance. Talk to people. Or don’t. Pretend we’re human.”
They reached the building. His hand was on the long metal door handle when she blurted out, “You won’t leave me alone?”
The smile he gave her…she didn’t have the words to describe it. “I wouldn’t dream of it.”
Chapter Seventy-One
Remember Me Like This
Clare was not drunk—she’d specifically followed Numair’s lead to find the non-alcoholic cider—but she felt like she imagined it did to be drunk. Lightheaded from the noise and all the heat produced by so many bodies crammed into the same space. A little…giddy, almost, but relaxed, too.
The night had stopped feeling stressful an hour or so in, once she realized that when people came up to talk to her and Numair, it wasn’t a test. They weren’t asking the cleverest questions, waiting to see if she could come up with an equally clever remark quickly enough. They weren’t attempting to trick her into revealing something they could use against her.
It wasn’t that they were entirely uncalculating—they were curious about her, and she had no doubt whatever she and Numair said was working its way through the crowd—it was only that none of it felt malicious. It was that they didn’t press too hard, and she could tell most of them were doing their best to let her be.
And they weren’t all interested in her. Plenty of people were stopping to talk to Numair. Half of that, interestingly enough, was questions about plants and soil conditions and the like, things she would have thought he’d have no need to know. That his magic simply grew what he wanted, regardless of his knowledge of how.
You couldn’t Songweave if you didn’t understand how to sing, the Song pointed out. He can’t grow something if he has no idea how it grows.
It made a certain amount of sense. While Numair talked ideal planting conditions, she found her gaze wandering the room. She caught sight of several more necklaces similar to the one Nissa had worn. All were the same basic design, though the colors and symbols varied.
When Numair’s conversation ended and they were once again as alone as they could be in a crowded room, she found herself asking, “The necklaces so many of the women have—does someone in the village make them?”
He froze, almost in the same way Nissa had when Clare had remarked on hers. Honestly, if she wasn’t supposed to notice them, why were they all worn so openly?
“Yes,” Numair said finally, “there are two people in the village who make them. Why?”
She shrugged. “They’re pretty.”
He finally relaxed again, grinning at her. “And you like pretty things, even if you shouldn’t?”
She’d said that, hadn’t she? “Maybe I could buy one, before we go?”
“Oh.” He looked away. “I don’t think—that is, they’re usually custom made. And with us leaving in the morning…”
She felt a flush creep up her neck. It was obvious what he wasn’t saying. That they weren’t for outsiders and that she, however much she’d been welcomed for a brief time, was an outsider. “Of course. Forget I mentioned it.”
They lapsed into a brief silence, which he broke by asking, “Do you want to leave?”
“No.”
“Then do you want to dance with me?”
Surprisingly, she did, only, “I don’t know any of the dances.”
