I shake my head to try to clear my focus, but it’s still pounding. “I don’t know, maybe I just need some rest. Last night’s still giving me a hangover.”
“You think? Come on. Eat. Looks like we’ve got, oh, bread, fruit.” She holds up an apple. “And some sort of burnt meat?” She grimaces as she prods the charred offerings.
“It’s calories.”
“It’s disgusting.”
“Have the apple and the bread. I’ll have what you don’t or won’t eat.”
She pauses, her fingers gripping the greenish apple. “They will let us out, won’t they? They can’t keep us in here indefinitely?” She raises her eyes to meet mine, and I’m struck by her fear, radiating like a sunbeam directly from her chest.
And I don’t know what to say to her.
I think of Calix and what he promised. We’ve already been gone a week. Will he convince his father to come for us after everything we’ve uncovered?
I don’t answer her.
eighteen
. . .
Ever
“Rise and shine. Time for training.” I hear Fenix, not inside the tent, but as I wake from a deep sleep. Surprisingly, given the accommodations, but it beats the cold floor. At least he didn’t burst in here to issue the command.
As I come around, the weight of everything that happened yesterday comes crashing back on me. Kalan, my parents, what I did with Ten. My mind is groggy and thick with sleep, as if all my energy has been drained. Flat. But then, motivation might be hard to find given the circumstances.
Being cut off from Ten doesn’t help. The vision and the swell of energy our experiment created left me raw and exhausted. And now I can’t hear him in my mind. I can barely feel him.
I’ve lost track of when the next full moon is, and I don’t know if it will have the same effect here as in Kirrasia, but maybe that’s what I need, to feel the full force of Aslendrix’s power again.
Pulling myself free from the thin blanket, I right myself and stretch the ache in my back, before I try calling to Ten again, butstill nothing. My heart picks up at the thought that what we had might be broken—that we brokeusby pushing too hard.
Footsteps outside pull my attention and prelude the rustle of fabric, as bright dawn light spills in from the gap into the tent.
The gate is unlatched, and my door opens for me to walk through.
“Clare will take you to the restroom tents. Then you can join us for breakfast,” Fenix instructs.
“And who isus?”
“The Usher, myself. Selina. Marius.” He cocks his head to the side.
“Who’s Marius?” I narrow my eyes, already guessing it’s the man I saw with the bag of books.
“He was with us on the ship.”
“Is he like you? Or is he Kirrian?”
“Full of questions today.”
“Maybe.”
“And here I was thinking you were done with questions, the way you ran off at the truth last night.” He waits, holding my stare. He’s needling me, looking for a rise, but I don’t bite. He wants me emotional. He wants me angry. But just like wanting me to call him Fen, I’m not going to cave to this demand.
“Come on, Clare.” I look at the girl who can’t be more than a few years older than me. Her shiny black hair and big eyes look innocent enough, but I’ve been tricked before.
She heads off, walking in a graceful and awkwardly smooth motion without saying a word, so I follow, eager to be away from my brother.
