We’re nearly to the market floor when Azmar pulls the ropes tight a second time. “I want to know, Lark. But I will not pry it from you.”
The utter respect with which he makes the request nearly makes me weep. A sore lump builds in my throat, and I nod my thanks.
Azmar escorts me to Engineering, which isn’t busy in the slightest, now that the damage caused by the recent monster attack has been passed to the construction team. He lied to Unach to keep me close.
Surely she would be furious if she knew just how close I wanted to be.
In the afternoon, Azmar walks me to my shift at the south dock. I climb and stand guard on outposts until the low sun starts coloring the sky. I take some time after my shift ends to watch the sky and read the stars. When I climb back down, my arms feeling like noodles, Azmar waits for me in the corridor. I know his shift ended hours ago, and I could kiss him for his kindness. But that thought skirts too close to the edge. I banish it, and instead whisper my thanks as we head back toward Montra housing. We stop at the market for polishing oil for Unach and the materials to construct a lock. Azmar gets them easily; higher-caste trollis have priority everywhere in Cagmar.
Using tools borrowed from Engineering, Azmar leans in my doorway and drills a hole into the hard mortar between stones, then carefully twists screws into the wooden door to secure a latch. A long iron bolt slides into the new hole. An elementary but expertly crafted lock.
He closes the door so I can test it. He shakes the handle, trying to get in. He makes a few adjustments before he’s satisfied.
I run my fingers over the device. “Thank you, Azmar. For everything. I’m in your debt.”
His lip quirks. Our eyes meet. Lifting a hand, he brushes a few strands of my hair behind my ear. My skin heats beneath his touch.
One of the other servants down the hall exits her room, and Azmar’s arm jerks away. Stepping back, he says, “We should go, before Unach wonders.”
When he starts toward the lift, I touch my cheek where his fingers grazed it and hope the corridor’s darkness hides the secrets that my skin would shout to all who might witness.
The lift isn’t empty this time. Because Azmar walks with me, no one complains when I step onto it out of turn. I push myself into the corner, trying to be small. Azmar leans against the wall beside me, his arms folded across his chest, his head dipped in thought. I wonder what he’s thinking, but I don’t want to ask with others around. I don’t know if it would hurt his reputation, acting friendly with me.
The lift rises to his floor, and we exit with two other trollis, who disappear into apartments closer to the lift. As we near his own, Azmar’s steps slow.
I stop. “What’s wrong?”
He lets out a long breath through his nose. Glances up toward the decking and joists overhead. “Lark.” He says my name like it’s a secret. Then he pauses again, unsure of his words.
I step closer to him. I want to take his hand, assure him, but I’m afraid to.
Finally he says, “I’m not human.”
My heart thuds in my chest. I could think of a few reasons why he’d feel the need to point this out to me, but only one prevails.
I lick my lips. Try to calm the whirling of my mind and the speed of my blood. Once I orient my thoughts, I tip my head into his line of sight so he’ll look at me. When he does, I say, “Sometimes I think I’m not, either.”
His left brow twitches. He rubs his eyes with his thumb and forefinger, then drops the hand and presses it between my shoulder blades, guiding me toward the apartment. The tips of his fingers might as well be hot pokers, the way they burn through my shirt.
When he opens the door, Unach, who appears to have been pacing, whips toward him. Where Azmar’s anger is bottled and hard, Unach’s is as ferocious as the monsters she hunts. Where Azmar suppresses his anger until it’s hard as granite, Unach feeds hers until it’s as jeopardous as the monsters she slays.
“What the actual hell, Azmar?”
My lungs seize. For a terrifying moment, I’m certain she’s discovered that Azmar stayed in my room last night. My terror-filled mind scrambles to find an excuse—
“I know about Kesta,” she spits.
Confusion bubbles up in my chest, extinguishing the fear.
Azmar says nothing. Unach marches right up to him, her hands in fists. She looks at me and says, “Out, Lark. Now.”
I obey immediately and skitter into the hallway. The door slams behind me.
I take only two steps before turning back and pressing my ear to the door. They’ve moved away from it, but I can still make out Unach’s iron words.
“She basically dropped her bloodstone at your feet, and you said no?”
I press a knuckle into my mouth and bite down. Bloodstone? Perg said trading them was the closest thing the trollis had to human marriage. And Kesta offered hers to Azmar?
My stomach twists so hard I slouch to compensate for it.
“I am not required to accept,” Azmar replies, so quietly I can barely make it out.
“She’s Montra, you fool! Why wouldn’t you? To say she’s offended is—” Unach’s words dwindle. She’s pacing again, away from the door. When she returns, I catch, “—chance again!”
Azmar says something I can’t discern.
The wall shakes, and I jump back from the door. Unach must have hit it. “You realize that if every trollis in Cagmar waited for fuzzy feelings to trade, we’d be extinct.” The words scathe.
After retreating from the door, I hurry to the ladder and start climbing down, pausing halfway to my floor. My hands tremble, palms slick on the metal rungs. I don’t want to make assumptions. I don’t want to jump to conclusions. History has proven time and time again that someone with my abilities is not meant to be loved. And yet my cheek burns where Azmar touched it. My mind flies to Tayler and his secretive township. To the half trollis Baten. To Perg.
You are human, he is trollis, I remind myself. He reminded me of that himself.
And yet I cannot believe we’re entirely impossible.
Shaking my head, I scurry down the ladder and wring my hands together. Desperate for a distraction, I climb down again, and again. I’ll visit Perg, take my mind off things.
For as long as I can.
It’s late, close to the twenty-third hour, when I return to the apartment. I stayed late with Perg, who now rests in his own chambers, which measure roughly the same size as mine, so that he also has to use public waterworks and baths, which will be hard with his injuries. Boredom and depression overwhelm him, so I stayed to play a board game that his nurse lent him. Unsurprisingly, it’s a war game, with so many pieces and strategies that it took me nearly an hour to get the hang of it. Perg won every match, but he deserves to win something.
I worry I gave him false hope, stretching myself to interpret the stars, the gods’ will for his future. Especially when I can’t even read my own.
Hoping Unach’s anger has fizzled out, I carefully knock on her apartment door.
“What?” she responds sharply.