Cass tried to stand, but his legs only half cooperated. Riot’s arms were there before Cass’s knees hit the tile, pulling him upright. “I’m fine,” he insisted.
“You’re not fine.”
“The room is just…moving. A little.”
“I know.”
“I can walk.”
“I know you can.” Riot didn’t let go.
The drug was doing something to his skin. Everything felt close and soft, like the air had thickened into a thing he could lean against and his head was wrapped in a foam that wantedhim to be calm, still and quiet. He didn’t want to be calm, he wanted to keep the anger.
You can have it later,he told himself.You can be angry later. Right now you have to walk.
That was okay. He knew how to bleed and walk at the same time. He’d been doing it for years.
The room was different than he’d left it.
Brother Matthias was sitting on the ground, his hands behind his back, tied with strips of fabric that Cass recognized as the sash from his spare robes. Sage stood behind him and Honey crouched on the ground, the blade still in her hand, her robes disheveled. and her face set in an expression Cass had never seen on her before.
Sage’s eyes moved over Cass, at the poorly tied robes and the way he was leaning against Riot’s side, the way his eyes were probably doing something strange because the room kept going slightly soft at the edges.
“I can walk,” Cass said preemptively. “Everything’s warm and a little slow but I can walk. I’m not—I’m not going to be a problem.”
“You’re not a problem,” Honey said, her voice sharp, like the idea of Cass being a problem was the most offensive thing anyone said all night. She looked to Sage. “We need to get to the inclement weather shelters. They’re tunnels under a greenhouse that we use for when tornado weather pops up.”
“How far?”
“Seventeen minutes if we walk normally. Fourteen if we move fast. The greenhouse is east of the meditation hall, past the reflection pools, through the herb garden, along the teachingpath.” She paused. “Night meditation is in progress. Everyone is in the main hall until the third bell. That gives us—”
A bell rang.
“That’s the first bell,” Honey said. “Twenty minutes to the second. Fifteen more to the third. After the third bell, people start moving.”
“So roughly thirty-five minutes to get across campus,” Sage said as she pulled Brother Matthias to his feet. He stumbled—his balance was off with his hands tied, and the wound on his cheek where Cass bit him was still bleeding, running down his jaw, dripping onto his white robes. He looked smaller than Cass remembered. Not just without the calm expression—withouteverything.Without the height and the warmth and the certainty. He was now just a man with blood on his face and his hands tied behind his back.
Cass walked over to him.”Cass,” Riot said behind him, but Cass was already there. He pulled his sleeve over his hand and pressed the fabric against Brother Matthias’s cheek, dabbing at the blood. Gently. Because dried blood pulled and cracked and itched, and Cass knew how that felt better than almost anyone.
“I’m sorry I bit you,” Cass said softly, and he meant it. His teeth had gone deep enough that the wound would scar. “Did you read the other children stories? At bedtime?”
Brother Matthias blinked. “What?”
“When I was little. You came to my room and read me stories. Before sleep. Every night.” The memory was warm. One of the warm ones that lived in his heart alongside the ones that hurt. “I liked the one about the eagle who found transcendence. You did the voice.”
“Your spiritual sensitivity required more personal—”
“Because Honey said she had the recordings. The meditation ones. She didn’t have a person.”
“That’s true,” Honey said from behind them. Her voice sounded wrong, but Cass’s head also felt like it was being filled with water from his ears, so he let the thought go. “I had the recordings. All the communal children did.”
“I liked those stories.” Cass moved to a spot of blood near his ear. “And when I was twelve and the trans-send-dance lectures were too hard for me, you volunteered to tutor me in your quarters. Three times a week.”
“Your comprehension required individual—”
“You told me not to tell the other children. You said they might feel bad that they didn’t get a tutor.”
“You never told me that either,” Honey said, and her voice sounded sad this time.
