This Shattered World (Starbound #2)(65)

“You were going to run,” I say softly. “When they came for you.”

“Where would I have run to?” She spreads the mixture down my chest a ways, stopping when she’s sure the line won’t be visible under a shirt. “There’s nothing for me on Avon anymore. Unless you think the Fianna would take me.”

I watch as she shifts, leaning over so she can work at my hands, staining carefully around the nails. Someone like her would’ve been a major asset for us—quick thinking and a silver tongue. Maybe she could have helped me fend off McBride.

Or maybe she’d have been dead alongside Mike and Fergal, and I’d have lost one more person that day.

“Don’t go into the swamps, Sofia.”

Her eyes search mine. “No,” she agrees, letting her breath out. “Let that soak in for a while,” she commands, getting to her feet and dipping a glass full of water with which to scrub at her stained hands over the basin.

“Whatever you were going to use this stuff for…can you get more?”

Sofia shrugs. “It’s fine, I can take care of myself.” She rinses her hands and tilts her head so she can peer at me. “But can you?”

“I don’t think Sean would even recognize me now.” There’s a cut at my heart for that, but I shove it aside.

“That’s not what I mean.” Sofia’s eyes are on mine, raking across my features, trying to read me the way she reads the trodairí when determining which one to try to swindle out of his extra rations. “Flynn…is she worth it?”

That brings me up short, and I stop picking at the paste drying to a crusty mess on my arm so I can gaze back at her. “She’s not why I chose what I did.”

The corner of Sofia’s mouth quirks. “You can hide from the Fianna, Flynn, but you can’t hide from me. Your eyes dilate when you think about her; you speak more quickly, less carefully. I’m used to watching for the signs—how do you think I get things out of the trodairí?”

I shake my head, knowing Sofia will read guilt clearly across my face. That the girl who killed my people, who I found covered in their blood, whose hands I had to wash clean—that the thought of her still does this to me is detestable. “It doesn’t matter. What she’s done, Sof—it doesn’t matter what I think or feel.”

“You were never a very good liar, Flynn.”

She gives the dyes time to set and then helps me wash my hair and scrub the paste from my skin. To my relief, when the dark brown gunk is swept away, the skin underneath is a much more natural shade of golden brown. Still ridiculous on me, but it’ll pass all but the closest of inspections.

I brought nothing with me, so once the mess is cleared away, I’m left standing by the door, bracing myself to step outside. It’s begun to rain, its patter on the roof muffled by the moss that grows there for insulation from the cold.

When I look back at Sofia, she’s biting her lip, her tired eyes finally lighting a little in amusement. Seeing my glance, she quips, “You do look like an idiot.”

“Good, I guess.”

“You can get into the bar via the back door. It’s in the alley behind the building, it leads into the storeroom.” The amusement flees her expression. “I’m probably not going to see you again after they take me away.”

Her matter-of-fact tone cracks my heart. “Maybe not,” I concede. “You never know.” She’s my last hint of home—the last person truly of Avon to look at me without hatred in her gaze. I’m forced to swallow, clear my throat as it threatens to close. “I’ll think of you.”

She shakes her head, lips curving a little. “I’ll think of you too. I’ll remember you looking absolutely ridiculous.”

“At least I’m memorable.” It’s gallows humor, but it helps. A little. I step toward her, lifting an arm to reach for a hug.

Her half smile vanishes, and she pulls away as her gaze slides from mine. “It’ll be easier for me if you don’t,” she says softly. “I have to stop thinking of this place as home. It has to just be a place I lived for a while.”

My throat does close then, and we’re both silent, with only the rain on the roof to break up the quiet. I study the girl I knew, another casualty of this fight, wondering how the wounds of it will mark her. “Clear skies, Sof.” It’s all I have left to say.

“Clear skies,” she whispers. “I hope you find what you’re looking for.”

The girl grips her brush, tongue poking out the corner of her mouth as she focuses on the page in front of her. The trick with calligraphy is to commit to the stroke. Her hand can’t waver or the ink will blot. The beauty will be lost.

She needs to write a note to the green-eyed boy, and it cannot wait.

But her fingers tighten around the brush’s handle until her knuckles whiten, and she’s pressing too hard. The characters writhe on the paper and weep fat tears of ink so they blur into one another. The girl can’t read them, and she can’t remember what she meant to write.

She stares down at the paper, the urgency beating through her in time with her heart, the memory hovering just out of reach. What did she need to tell the boy?

The blurred letters fade out as the girl watches, and soon the paper is blank.

“CAPTAIN CHASE, YOU’RE LATE.” Commander towers is glaring at me. But I don’t care. I can’t find my apology—I can’t even find a salute. I’m too busy staring at the man standing on the other side of her desk. He still sports a holstered Gleidel at one hip, too long a soldier to come to a place like Avon unarmed despite having resigned from the military. He’s wearing clean and tidy civvies, practical and suited to Avon’s muddy surface: boots, trousers, a fitted T-shirt, like the most casual version of our uniform. With my hair hastily pinned up under my hat and my buttons in severe need of polishing, I feel like an idiot.