My scrubbing slows. My knuckles ache, and lack of sleep makes my muscles sore. “Do you have anything that needs mending?”
Azmar stands in the doorway to his room. He says, gently yet firmly, “Go to sleep, Lark. You’ll be safe.”
I should be. Unach isn’t a liar. And yet the promise flits away on the air. There might be space to sleep beneath my cot. Then, if Grodd comes in the middle of the night, he’ll think I’m gone. The idea lends me a little courage.
I return the scrub brush to its bucket and wipe my hands on my skirt. “Of course.”
Feeling small, I keep my head down and slip into the corridor, closing the door softly behind me. I scan both ways, checking the shadows. Something moves to my right, but it’s only the trollis in the neighboring apartment.
My clammy hands barely grip the ladder rungs as I drop down to my level. Again I scan the darkness. Hold my breath and listen. Someone converses down the way, too distant for me to make out individual words. I sprint to my door. Open and close it.
I won’t light a candle. I won’t make a sound. I won’t do anything to reveal I’m here.
If I have to use my ability for self-defense, will Qequan still punish me?
Lowest of the low, I remind myself. Even lower than a Pleb.
In the dark, I get down on my knees and feel under the cot. There isn’t enough room to crawl under, but there might be if I lift the cot, roll under, and then lower it over me.
I’ve little space to work with, and I’m clumsy in the dark. I scoot my little table closer to the door, as out of the way as I can get it. Then I roll up my two blankets, including the fur Azmar gave me, and put them on the table, wishing I had moonlight to see by. Tugging the cot out from the wall, I wince when it scrapes across the stone loudly. Then I lift it and push it against the far wall. I stub my toe on the table when I go to retrieve the blankets. The thicker one can go on the floor, to nullify the stone’s chill. And the thinner one—
Lamplight peeks through a hair-fine crack in my door. My throat constricts.
A soft knock sounds.
Grodd wouldn’t knock.
I steel myself before croaking, “Ritha?”
“Lark.” It’s Azmar’s voice.
All my breath rushes from me. I dart to the door, stumbling once, and open it.
Azmar lifts his lamp and looks into my room. “What are you doing?”
I glance back at the mess. “I . . . was rearranging.”
He eyes me.
Picking at a hangnail, I say, “I was going to sleep under the cot. So the room would look empty.”
“I see.”
We stand there, quiet and stiff, for several seconds, until my wits come to me. “Do you want to come in?”
He nods, and I step aside. He closes the door, then runs his hand along it. “You don’t have a lock.”
“I don’t think any of the servants’ quarters do.”
“Hmm.” He sets the lamp on the table, illuminating my mess. As he inspects my thin door, I set down my cot, oddly embarrassed. “I’ll need a steel-bit drill, but I can install a lock here.” He prods the mortar between stones in the door frame.
My chest balloons. “Really?”
“I’ll purchase the materials tomorrow.”
I’d offer to purchase them myself, but I don’t make any money. “Thank you, Azmar. So much.” If only I could have the lock tonight. Surely Grodd wouldn’t dare break down a door to get to me. It would make too much noise.
Azmar pulls away from the door. “I’ll stay, if it doesn’t bother you.”
Heat rushes into my cheeks. “S-Stay? Here?” Oh please yes.
“If you’re afraid.”
I swallow. “I . . . I am. I know what Unach said, and I understand the basics of trollis law, but—”
“I can wait outside the door,” Azmar gently interrupts, “but if Grodd does mean you harm, it would be better to let him in.”
I choke. “Pardon?”
“A guard will scare him off. But if he’s caught in the act, he’ll be dealt with officially. With so many marks against him, it will not go well.”
I consider this.
Misreading my silence, Azmar says, “He will not get past me.”
“I have no doubt of that.” Grodd is a large trollis, but so is Azmar. His family line is Montra, after all. I meet his eyes. They look gold in the lamplight. “Azmar, thank you.”
He pointedly raises an eyebrow. “Don’t tell Unach.”
The way that sounds, my ears warm as well. I grab the blankets from the table and arrange them on the cot. “Here,” I offer.
“I’ll take the floor.”
“You won’t fit on the floor.” There’s barely enough space for the two of us standing.
His lip twitches. “I don’t plan to lie down.” He settles against the wall, knees up, elbows atop them. Tilted just slightly toward the door. “You should sleep, Lark.”
If he thinks I’ll just fall asleep with him sitting there, he’s mistaken. But then I realize the anxiety has fled me entirely. I am utterly calm, save for other nerves. And I am dreadfully tired.
Taking the thicker of my blankets, I unfurl it over him.
“Lark,” he says.
But I let the fur settle over him, as he’d done for me when I was shivering in the hallway. I even tuck it behind his shoulders. In doing so, my face gets very close to his. I meet his eyes. A sort of smoky warmth flickers in them. And I can smell him—white cedarwood and ginger.
I pull away. “Thank you.”
He nods, still watching me.
I turn down the lamp, not wanting to waste fuel, though truly I want the darkness to hide my flush, my expression, for I fear it reveals more than I want it to. I lay on my cot, guilty knowing that Azmar will lose sleep over me, and curl into the other blanket. Despite my weariness, sleep feels a long way off.
After a while, Azmar murmurs, “Lark.”
I roll over to face him, though in the impenetrable darkness, I can’t even make out his silhouette. “Hmm?”
He waits so long that I think he won’t speak after all, but finally he asks, “Why did you come here?”
He asked me before, on the bridge. He hasn’t forgotten. But now he wants to know more. And how can I deny him, after all he’s done for me?
Biting my lip, I mull over my life, my reasons, my secrets. I try to line them up in a row, inspect them one by one.
Azmar shifts against the stone.
“I’m the oldest of four,” I begin, “though my brothers and sisters are half siblings. My mother—my father’s wife—never wanted me. In truth, I don’t know why my father did, at first. He’s a terrible person. The worst I’ve ever known. Even when he doesn’t notice you, he is terrible. But it’s worse when he does. He . . . knew there was something special about me. Figured out what it was and decided I’d be useful to him.