Before She Ignites (Fallen Isles Trilogy #1)(87)

“Why?” Chenda’s voice was raw, and just as hollow as the rest of her. In spite of her previous rank, she’d been given no special treatment here. “Why did they want you?”

“They wanted me to say what you would not.”

She blinked slowly, like even that much movement was a challenge. “Did you?”

“No.” I held her gaze. “I would not.”

“Mira refused.” Pride filled Ilina’s tone, and defensiveness. “Right in front of everyone at the dinner, she told them love does no harm. And then, when we tried to sneak her out of the inn where they were keeping her, she refused to come with us. Instead, she thought she had to rescue all of you too. But I can’t imagine why. No one here seems to appreciate her.”

“Tirta is nice,” I offered. “But she’s in a different cellblock.”

“And that helps us not at all.” Ilina’s pacing sounded on the floor—eight, nine, ten—and then she kicked the metal lid of her sewage hole, making it scrape the stone. “This place is disgusting.”

Chenda turned back to me and nodded slowly, deeply. “Thank you, Mira.”

“It didn’t make a difference. They only listen when I say what they want to hear.”

“That, too, I understand.” Her mouth tugged up in one corner, not quite a real smile, but an attempt, perhaps. “That is the way of the world for us, isn’t it? Valued, but in the way a painting is valued. Moved around. Shown to guests. Talked about and talked about, until one day a smudge is discovered. Then we are discarded.”

“We are not paintings, Chenda. And from now on, I won’t be treated like one.”

This time, she did offer a smile. A real one. “Neither will I.” But the way she said it was more like acceptance.

Because we were ruined, both of us. My cheek slashed open. Her whole body withered with some sort of illness.

And now that I looked at my neighbors, really looked, I could see that Gerel was skinnier than before. Aaru’s spine, too, had stuck out in ridges of bones, protruding through his shirt. They’d all lost weight, because even the meager amount of food I’d sneaked for them had made a difference.

I faced the wall I shared with Aaru and waited seven thumping heartbeats, and then I tapped my palms on the sides of my thighs: short long, short long, short long short, short short long. ::Aaru?::

The quiet code came slowly, awkwardly, since I hadn’t practiced much while I was gone, but if there was one thing I could do, it was remember numbers.

No response. Maybe he hadn’t just stopped talking out loud, but talking in quiet code, too.

My heart sank as I dropped to the floor and crawled under the bed. There was the hole in the wall. Our secret place. “Aaru?” My voice was soft.

Still nothing.

He didn’t crawl under with me. He didn’t reach through and take my hand. He didn’t acknowledge my presence.

“Can you blame him?” Gerel asked, almost thoughtfully. “After he was punished for being your friend?”

“No,” I said, even though Aaru had forgiven me for what Altan had done. It was my name that was the problem. My omission. “I don’t blame him at all.”

I SPENT THE night thinking.

Mother would have laughed, because I was never much of a thinker, she said, but that was what I did. I slept under my bed, caught in a weird sensation that I’d never actually left. Like the trip to Bopha had been nothing but an especially vivid dream. Still, I had the mark where Elbena had cut me. That was proof enough.

And all my thoughts came down to one fact: if I didn’t do something now, I’d never leave.

We’d never leave, because I’d come back for Gerel, Aaru, Tirta, and Chenda, hadn’t I? And I’d inadvertently brought Hristo and Ilina with me.

Maybe . . . If I could get all my friends moved into the second level, with more food and better accommodations, they would be strong enough to escape with me. I just had to figure out how to make Altan agree to it.

I must have fallen asleep, at least briefly, because the noorestones were lit when I opened my eyes.

And I was alone under the bed. Aaru must have learned to sleep on his bed in my absence. I tried to ignore the sinking in my heart, but there it was. Disappointment.

Of all the people here—well, not counting Ilina and Hristo—he was the person who I most needed to apologize to. I wouldn’t have called it a friendship, not like Gerel had said, but he’d been so kind to me. I wanted to count him as a friend. I wanted . . .

Before I could finish untangling those feelings, boots thumped through the hall. I scrambled out from under the bed and straightened my dress and hair as I pressed my spine to the rear of the cell. It was alarming how quickly it came back, in spite of eighteen days of absence. The thirty-three days in the Pit before that were too strong. Too real.

Altan stood at the door, a bag of breakfast hanging from one hand. That meant I hadn’t been invited back to work. My stomach rolled at the thought of what waited in that sack. Rotten apples. Hard bread. Mold with a little bit of cheese left on it.

“Failure,” Altan said, and the word spiraled through me, cutting. “Liar.” He wore a deep frown that carved trenches in his forehead.

“Liar?” My voice carried down the hall. It had been quiet before, with only the taunts of the second guard and the exhausted yawns of prisoners. Now, it was a listening quiet.