Before She Ignites (Fallen Isles Trilogy #1)(51)

No one was coming to get me.

I WAS ON my own.

If I didn’t want to stay in the Pit the rest of my life, this dark threat of Altan’s hanging over me, I needed to do something about it. I needed to escape before he could pry out more secrets.

But not right now. It was almost dark, and I didn’t want to be caught in it.

First, I found my silk square and fastened it over my hair. Second, I checked to make sure my pillow and blanket were under the bed, where they belonged.

“Are you all right?” Gerel sat on her bed already, arms looped around her knees. Showing off, clearly. The normal sleeping location held no terror for her, after all.

“It doesn’t really matter, does it? I can’t change anything.” The words came out colder than intended.

“You spent all last night crying and kept me awake. So yes, it matters. You need to learn to overcome your fear, that way the rest of us can get some sleep.”

My chest stung from her comment. I hadn’t spent all last night crying. Just . . . some of it. “Sorry to inconvenience you. Try sleeping during the day while I’m working.”

Before she could respond, I spun around like I had somewhere else to be. At that moment, the lights went out.

Panic stole my breath. The darkness disoriented, but I kept my numbers: I took the two steps to my bed, knelt, and scurried to the safety of that small space.

Down the hall, Hurrok opened his lungs and released his terror into the hall. The sound echoed, filling the cellblock like liquid. As much as I hated his screaming, it was a reminder: this was normal darkness, filled with other people. This was not alone darkness. Isolated darkness.

Still, I found myself counting, gathering my numbers until there was nothing else.

I made it to five hundred and eight before I registered the heat of Aaru’s hand on mine. He was tapping, telling a story.

::Wait,:: I said. ::Will you start over?::

The screaming man stopped at last, leaving behind an aching silence.

::Very well.:: From Aaru’s quiet code, I couldn’t tell whether he was annoyed or not.

“Sorry.” Mother would have had a fit if she knew how often I ended up apologizing to an Idrisi boy; she’d have said it was beneath me. Unless, of course, I was being the Mira, and I needed to be gracious to everyone. But then I’d have been in trouble for not paying attention.

::Why?::

“I was rude. I wasn’t being attentive.”

::You were scared.:: He petted my fingers, as though brushing the fears away. It was such a simple motion, but it made my heart pound with a painful yearning. ::I would have stayed if I could have.::

“You saved me,” I whispered. “When you came back, you saved me.”

Before he could reply, I scooted toward the hole, forcing him to pull his arm back to his side. It was most comfortable for me if I let him be the one to reach through the hole, but after my days in the dark, pressing my arm through for his cup of water, I knew how uncomfortable that was.

So I moved closer to the hole and slipped my hand through in offering. A breath played across my upturned palm. His mouth was so close; if I stretched my fingers, I could touch his face.

I didn’t move.

He did.

It was just a rearrangement of limbs, adjusting his position, but for an instant, his face brushed across my fingertips. Mouth? Cheek? Nose? It was too brief to tell. But still, my heart raced.

Then, warm, rough skin slid the length of my fingers. Our hands curled together for a moment before he turned mine over and drew me in a fraction farther. His mouth grazed my knuckles before he released me.

My hand stayed there, suspended in the air. I wanted to act, to map his features with my fingertips, but what if this wasn’t an invitation? What if I ruined everything?

“Mira.” His voice came soft, and in little puffs across my knuckles. He’d kept his strange pronunciation: Meer-AH.

I moved. And I found his eyebrow, his temple, and a sharp line of his cheekbone. I traveled downward and met the curve of his top lip, and there I could feel the rapidness of his breathing.

Though I wanted to continue this exploration, I withdrew. I couldn’t tell if he was nervous or upset, excited or panicked, so I pulled my hand back to the neutral territory of the hole.

He didn’t say anything, aloud or otherwise, but when his hand pressed into the hole with mine, some of my worry melted away. Maybe he hadn’t minded.

“I’ve decided,” I whispered.

He waited.

“I don’t want the story.”

He drew back just a breath.

Oh. He thought I was rejecting him. This. Whatever this was. “I mean . . .” I cursed my lack of Daminan gifts. I didn’t have the right words. The right tone. “I want you to tell me about you, not just any story.”

Two, three, four heartbeats. And then: “Me?”

I echoed his words from before. “I want to know you.”

More heartbeats raced between us. Eight, nine, ten. “Really?”

I cupped his hand in both of mine. ::I want to know everything about you.:: My face heated. I hadn’t meant to be so obvious, so pathetically fascinated by this strange and silent boy.

But if he noticed, he chose not to embarrass me. ::What do you want to know?::

::Everything. Anything you’ll tell me.:: Oh, by the seven Fallen Gods. And all the Upper Gods, too. I couldn’t trust my mouth not to speak without my mind’s direction, and it seemed I couldn’t trust my hands, either.