Page 55 of Zenith Tower

“You should ask to go back,” I said.

She came inside and sat in the chair beside the bed. “No.”

I looked down at my useless right hand. “I don’t want you watching this.”

“Why?”

“When people watch, I make them laugh.” I swallowed. “I don’t have one tonight.”

“Then don’t.”

She moved from the chair and knelt in front of me. Her hands rested on my knees, warm even through the fabric of my trousers.

“My mother died before she could tell me anything,” shesaid. “Everything I might have asked went with her. I’m not leaving this room while I can still ask you what hurts.”

“Astra—”

“Then be afraid with me. Don’t send me away.”

I closed my eyes.

Her hands stayed on my knees. She waited.

“I don’t want to die,” I said.

I opened my eyes. Astra was still there.

“I thought I had made peace with dying,” I continued. “I had three years to do it. Then I met you, and suddenly I wanted things that required more time than I had.”

She looked down. Her thumbs moved once against my knees.

“I told you I loved you on the worst day I could have chosen,” I said. “After that, every hour we had was borrowed from something. The Hall. The Council. This place. I wanted one morning with you that didn’t feel stolen.”

Her breath caught.

“I wanted enough of them to stop noticing,” I said. “I wanted ordinary.”

Astra rose onto her knees and put both hands around my face. Her palms were cool against my skin.

“So did I,” she said. “I still do.”

“You make that sound possible.”

Her thumb moved beneath my eye. “It might not be. I want it anyway.”

I wished she had lied. I turned my face into her palm.

“You don’t have to protect me from this,” she said. “I know who you are.”

I opened my eyes.

“The clock tower,” she said. “The apple outside my door. The way you looked when you finally told me the truth.” Her mouth trembled. “I remember all of it.”

I covered her left hand with mine.

She sat beside me on the bed, careful of my right shoulder.I put my left arm around her and felt her settle against my good side.

The reader returned at the end of the hour. She measured my shoulder, then Astra’s wrist. Her pen stopped when she compared the new figures with the old ones.