I was walking back to my room, belly full from eating, when I caught two guys I recognized from the construction crew about to slam hammers into the outer wall of my building. I ran the rest of the way and jumped in between them and my room before they could do more than dent the surface.
“What are you doing?”
“Ryker told us we had to.”
“He told you to destroy my room?” Ryker and I had our differences. Maybe I’d even said I hated him in the heat of the moment or when I just needed some distance. Yeah, I’d punched him in the face, but I thought after yesterday that we’d gotten past that.
He’d just been pretty human to me. I thought maybe we’d gotten to a place where, yeah, he was going to get me killed, but he might not enjoy it. But here they were, about to destroy my room on his orders? Figured he’d hold a grudge about that punch.
The two guys shook their heads quickly. “No, he said we had to build a window.”
Wait. A window? Hmmm, a window would be kind of nice. But we did hate each other, didn’t we? I shouldn’t accept a window. That might be—
“Before you say anything else, Ryker told us that under no circumstances were we to listen to you and stop working. He said, ‘Your room is cold and damp. I can’t have you fucked up. You’ve got a job to do.’”
The two builders were staring at me, and I stared back. It wouldn’t be a window like it used to be in the ruins, where all the stuff flew in. Or would it? Maybe he was trying to ruin my room?
“What is it going to look like?”
One guy shrugged and said, “I don’t know. Like a window?”
The other guy, obviously the brighter of the two, pointed at a nearby building with a pretty window that had shiny glass in it. “Like that.”
I liked that window. “Will it open and close?”
“Yes.”
“Well, then I wouldn’t want to stop you from doing your job.”
They both exhaled as I moved toward my door.
“Stay away from this wall,” the smart one said, hitting a palm on the area that was about to become my window.
“Sure.”
The window wasn’t my only surprise when I walked in, leaving the door open for light. I had a bed. Like, a real, off-the-ground bed with a wooden frame and pelts on top of it. How was I supposed to sleep on that? What if I rolled off in the middle of the night?
Well, I’d slept in Ryker’s bed and I hadn’t rolled off.
I made my way over to it and sat down. Squishy. I bounced a few times. Really squishy. I flopped onto it. It was a nice kind of squishy, even softer than Ryker’s. I might have the best bed in the place. Still, it would take some getting used to. I turned onto my side, checking out different positions, and saw that my book pile had grown.
Hmmm. That was interesting. I reached down and grabbed a new one off the top. I was just about to light a candle when I heard the hammer. A beam of light found me through the hole that would be my new window.
I got to the front of the line for lunch and there weren’t any steaming orbs of perfection left—or biscuits, as the boring people called them.
I stepped away from the empty tray with a frown, but one of the tower guards said, “Here, you can have mine.”
Ben, I thought his name was. His shift on the watchtower was right after Ruck’s. He was another smiler, but he had a nice smile that went up higher on the right side, so it wasn’t so perfect. He held out his plate toward me, with his biscuit for the taking.
“No, I can’t take yours. It’s okay. I ate one already. I’m on my second for the day.” Plus, I had some older ones from breakfast stashed in my room, but he didn’t need to know that.
“You sure?”
“Yeah, thanks.” I smiled back. I didn’t even know I could smile at a stranger, but it was like his was infectious.
“Please take it. I like when pretty girls smile,” he said.
You could hurl insults my way all day and I’d be as cold as ice. A cute boy called me pretty and my cheeks flamed. And he was cute, with those golden highlights in his hair and his warm brown eyes.
I reached toward his plate and felt an invisible shove before I could take the biscuit.
What the hell? Where was he? I’d known Ryker was here, but I’d avoided looking for him. There wasn’t any real reason, other than the intimacy of spending the night and talking before falling asleep beside him. Then there was the whole window thing. I didn’t know if I should be thanking him for that, or aggravated because he only wanted to keep me healthy so that I could die for him.
Now I wanted to find him, and I did, sitting opposite Burn in conversation.
I took the biscuit and headed toward Ryker’s table, leaving the cute guy a little stunned. I’d smooth that over next time I saw him. There were bigger issues right now.
I stopped right in front of their table, and glared at Ryker until the conversation died.
“Why did you push me?”
He leaned back. “What?” It sounded accusatory, as if I was the one who’d started trouble with him.
I bent forward a couple of inches. “Why. Did. You. Push. Me.”
“I didn’t—”
Burn coughed and Ryker turned his attention to him, as did I. It was the fakest cough I’d ever heard. Burn wasn’t a good faker of anything, but man, his cough might’ve been the worst. He coughed again, his head bobbing with the action. What the hell was wrong with him?
Ryker’s eyes narrowed, and he opened his mouth to say something but then stopped. His eyes focused solely on Burn for a second. There was some sort of silent man-speak going on. He turned to me finally and said, “Accident.”
“You pushed me by accident?”
“Guess it’s habit.”
I looked at Ryker and then back to Burn. Did Ryker not know he’d pushed me? For someone who prided themselves on control, he might’ve needed some practice himself. At least I knew when I was out of control. He was letting his magic go all sorts of crazy.
Either way, that was about as close to an apology as I was probably going to get, so I lifted my chin for a second, which was as close to a nod of acceptance as he was going to get. I took my food and left. He was lucky he’d gotten me that new squishy bed. It was the only thing that saved him from my wrath. Well, the window might’ve helped a bit too.
I squatted by the edge of the territory and dug into the dirt, finding a nice, fat worm. Might’ve been the biggest one I’d found in a long time. I whispered to it and placed it down in the center of the hole. It turned and crawled back toward the camp, as all the rest of them had done. Maybe there was some crazy good dirt in this place and it had nothing to do with staying?
“Bugs?” The voice was small, and I wasn’t sure if the question was about interrupting me or just using my name.
I looked up and saw one of the girls that worked the breakfast line in the morning—her name was Clarissa or Karen or something. She smiled. It was as if they couldn’t help themselves.
“Yes?”
She stared down at where the worm had crawled. “I heard you could tell things?”
I filled the hole. “I can’t. The worms can. Or they have in the past.”
She took a step forward, and I realized I must’ve lost my scowl. I didn’t bother trying to get it back. She seemed too intent on talking to me for it to work anyway.
She pointed toward the newly turned earth. “Could you ask it a question for me?”
“Sure.” Seeing as I wasn’t going anywhere… I moved over a few feet and dug a new hole, explaining the yes and no directions.
“Will I ever get magic?” she asked.