Coldmaker(81)

I looked up at Leroi but he didn’t meet my eyes. He was studying her as he often studied me, a pensive look on his face. After a few moments, he looked her straight in the eyes, and said, ‘Stay. Please.’

Cam and I both looked up, confused.

‘As another assistant,’ Leroi added. ‘We’ll keep you safe here. Shilah, is it?’ he asked carefully.

Shilah tilted her head suspiciously, staring back into Leroi’s face. ‘What will I have to do?’ She took a few steps away, her back resting on the railing.

Cam looked to me in puzzlement, but a High Noble wouldn’t know true desperation like we would. It shocked me to see Shilah so vulnerable, and not completely fearless.

‘This and that. Nothing difficult.’ Leroi gestured to the tinkershop, his voice softening. ‘There’s plenty to be done here. Cleaning. Stocking. You can help to build things if you wish.’

Shilah’s eyes narrowed, searching Leroi’s face. ‘What were those anklets that I saw on the other Jadans here? The guards and the Domestics.’

Leroi faltered, his voice narrowing to a hiss. ‘You’ll never wear one. I promise. I’ll keep you secret.’

‘And if I want to leave?’ she asked.

Leroi took a deep breath. I couldn’t understand why he seemed so set on getting her to stay. ‘Course you can. Any time. I swear it on my honour. I have a passage in my study that leads outside the walls. I can show you. Right now, if you want. Just stay.’

I felt a tad slighted, considering Leroi had made me prove myself to stay on as an assistant, yet here he was offering the same thing to Shilah without question. Also, Leroi had never offered to show me the secret passage.

Shilah brushed ash from her hands. ‘I guess I’ll need a uniform then.’





Chapter Twenty-Seven


‘Are you awake?’ Shilah whispered.

I kept my eyes closed, but I was no closer to sleep than Shilah was to Langria. My mind was still spinning from our unlikely reunion, the wobbliness toppling any Ideas I’d had for possible uses of the Cold Charge. I’d been wondering if the Charge could lift the heavy slabs of stone to the top of the Pyramid, or maybe could be injected into garden soil to help fig rations, but nothing felt serious, and nothing was sticking.

‘No,’ I said, shifting my sheet. I still wasn’t used to being in a place chilled enough to need a layer on top, but since we had our own private Bellows to crank, the room was practically frigid.

‘If you’re not awake, then I guess you’re dreaming about me,’ Shilah said.

‘I’m dreaming about the Cold Charge.’ I smirked, turning my head so I could face her. Her bed had been set up so it was almost touching mine. My nights had been quiet since I’d left my room with Abb, and I was secretly glad to have her close.

‘You made the right choice, coming here,’ I said, turning towards her fully. She’d taken on a new vulnerability since entering the Tavor Manor. ‘Why can’t you sleep?’

‘I’m trying to figure it out.’

‘It’s pretty simple. The salt and the Cold don’t mix, so the energy gets collected in the water—’

‘Not that,’ she said, pulling out her map again and brushing her fingers over the Opened Eye. ‘This.’

‘Can we please go five minutes without you trying to convince me to leave?’ I asked, pulling the sheet over my chest. ‘Why would you want to leave here? This place has everything.’

‘I know it does.’ She kept stroking the old map, movements slow and poised. Her finger wandered over Paphos, across the Erridian Bridge, around the City of the Stars, through the Glasslands, and up to the Opened Eye. ‘Do you know any stories?’

I couldn’t hide my surprise. ‘Stories?’

She brushed the strands of hair out of her face. ‘Yeah, stories.’

I indulged the thought for a moment. She reminded me of Matty, asking for a game of ‘Whatsit’. ‘I suppose so.’

‘Tell me one,’ she said, her voice small. ‘My mum used to tell me stories, to help me sleep.’

Realization dawned on me. Of course she couldn’t have been alone all this time. She’d lost her own Abb. She knew of the pain I’d been dreading more than anything else. My sheet suddenly lost its warmth as a chill ran across my skin.

I thought hard. ‘What kind?’

‘Doesn’t matter.’

I paused, trying to hold back my smile. ‘One time there was this Tinkerer named Salvidor Suth who wanted to figure out a better way to combine metals without—’

She reached over to my cot, giving me a playful slap across the chest. ‘A story. I’ve had enough lessons for the day.’

I channelled my father, offering a goofy wiggle of my eyebrows. ‘The best stories are lessons, Little Builder.’

I felt a pang in my heart and decided not to joke around with that nickname, at least until I saw Abb again.

‘Crier above,’ Shilah said with a sigh. ‘Send me a new world partner.’

‘Okay, I have a real one.’

She rolled onto her back, looking up at the ceiling. ‘Go ahead, I’m listening.’

So for the next half-hour I told her of Klaus and Rachel as told to me by Abb when I was younger. A classic tale, from before the Drought. It didn’t have any religious connotations, so the story hadn’t been banned, everyone from the Southern Cry Temple to the Great Divide had heard some version of it. It was a story of love lost, adventure found, brave explorers, treasures unearthed, rulers slowly turning evil from greed, family squabbles, and even extinct beasts called ‘horses’ which were like camels, but stronger and faster.