Don’t do it, my Conscience reiterates.
I don’t know if it’s because I do it or he presses forward, but now my hand rests on his chest, and the feel of his heart is so strong, so familiar, I’m overwhelmed by the emotions flooding over me. He has to grab my arm to steady me.
Jonah, Caleb says, but his voice is faint in the clamor of our heartbeats.
“I can’t do this.” I look up once more to find his eyes dark and sad. There is no need to ask for clarification.
“Me either,” I tell him. And I mean it. I genuinely do.
So why am I so disappointed when he pulls away?
“There’s got to be a way out,” Kellan says, the flashlight smacking against an open palm over and over again.
He’s pretending like our lips weren’t perilously close earlier. I don’t know if I want to talk about the almost incident, either, so I play along. “Like I said, I can blast us out.”
His head cocks to the wall at the front of the cave I’d created; it’s rattled steadily for the last couple hours due to assaults by the ever-noisy Elders. I cock my own head in the opposite direction, back toward the small tunnel leading to an even smaller tube and our tiny water source.
“Not worth the risk,” he and Caleb insist in unison. I sigh and rest my chin in hands propped up by elbows on knees. My stomach lets loose an embarrassingly loud rumble. Fact is, I’m starving. And thirsty. It takes a—well, I don’t know how long. An hour? Maybe two? Before the cup I created for us fills even a quarter.
I tried to widen the hole the water’s dripping from, but somehow, it made the trickle even slower. I installed a faucet, too, but had to stop when Kellan found out I was using Magic. I endured a lengthy lecture about conserving my energy, but I’m itching to try again.
A few rocks tumble down from the ceiling between us. I stretch up a hand when Kellan isn’t looking and imagine the ceiling solidifying. Although I can’t physically see it do so, the cave’s walls smooth slightly until no more loose pieces will threaten to target us.
Why I can do this, change the texture and consistency of a cave’s walls, but not be able to create water or plant life is beyond me. Fate has a funny way of shaping Magical crafts. Maybe it’s a way for Fate to ensure one craft is never omnipotent. I’d need an Aqua to help with the water, or even an Elemental or Tide; all can manipulate water sources. I’d need a Nymph or an Agro to deal with the food, but even they can’t make something appear out of nothing.
I can build us a table but not anything to put on it. I’m utterly useless in here.
“Has Jonah escaped yet?”
Kellan looks away from the flashlight beam he’s been splaying across the cave. “No.”
I try to swallow the helplessness that rises up my throat, but it’s too big to fully get rid of. “Is he okay?”
Kellan clicks off the flashlight and joins me on the floor. “He’s fine.” A small smile escapes. “They have food and water with them. So that right there gives him a leg up on us.”
He’s tired. There are dark smudges under his eyes and his hair is in disarray. I can’t help but ask how he’s doing, too.
Kellan stares off into the distance. “I’m fine.”
It’s a lie. It has to be. Because I’m not fine, not by a long shot. I’m so hungry I’ve considered eating rocks and so thirsty I can barely make my own spit to wet my tongue. It’s getting harder and harder to focus, and the incessant shrieking outside doesn’t help matters.
At least I’m not freaking out. I’m not crying, not hyperventilating. At least I have that going for me.
“We’re going to be okay, C.”
“I know,” I tell Kellan. But it’s a lie.
Death is such a big thing. I know that sounds all duh, since it’s something we all know is going to happen to us, but at the same time, it’s never felt real. Until the Elders, I never thought much about death. Now, every time they’re around, I think about it way too much.
Thanks to Caleb’s updates, I know we’re at the end of our second day in the cave. We slept last night on a blanket that I managed to make before Kellan nearly ripped my head off for once more wasting “valuable energy on something insignificant.”
When he was asleep, I made another pair of blankets to cover us. It comes as no surprise he was unhappy about this.
“They just don’t give up, do they?” I ask after the cave is rocked particularly hard.
He’s leaning against the wall, a safe distance away. His laugh, warm and resigned all at once, curls around me.
“We’re going to die, aren’t we?”