It’s an obvious ploy to change the subject, but I can’t help smiling when I look down at my sunshiney yellow page. “My grandma’s house in Sacramento had dandelion flowers this color all over the front lawn. I spent a lot of summers there making them into crowns for all my brothers and me. It’s the color of home.”
“We chose the same color,” Aqen observes. We turn the pages of our half-sketchbooks and do the color exercise again, swapping little stories about our lives. I doodle a cartoon of my grandpa’s dog, he draws his weapons collection and labels all of them in pretty, flowing Irran script. I sketch him grinning with all his pointy teeth showing, he draws me as a bald stick figure with a square smile. I lose it when I notice he’s drawn my boobs as circles on either side of the stick torso. Breasts must look so weird to them.
“What is this?” Nik booms. I was so caught up in laughing at our portraits that I didn’t hear him coming. Aqen scrambles to his feet and bows, dropping his chalk. It splits into several pieces, and I wince, knowing I won’t be able to replace it easily.
“We were just drawing,” I say quickly, gathering up the evidence and shoving it behind the door. The chalk crumbs smear across the floor, drawing attention to where we were sitting. I hope Nik doesn’t punish Aqen for going along with my idea. I spot the loaded tray in his hands. The perfect distraction. “Did you bring us food? That’s so nice, thank you!”
I reach to take the tray from him, but he holds it out of range, glowering at both of us. Aqen looks like he wants to sink into thefloor, and I mouthsorrybefore realizing he can’t understand me unless his translator can hear my voice.
“It’s my fault. I made him sit with me,” I confess.
“Is this true?”Say yes. Say yes.Nik continues before Aqen can answer him. “This tiny untrained femaleforcedyou to sit on the floor? How did she defeat you, apprentice? Is she stronger than you? Is she more skilled with a blade? Did she offer you a bribe too tempting to resist?”
“I asked nicely,” I interrupt, not so nicely. “It’s amazing what people will do for you when you treat them with a little respect.”
Nik’s eyes flash to me. “I respect him enough to let him speak for himself.”
“I neglected my duty, Jara,” Aqen says quickly, skin paling with shame. “I accept whatever punishment you impose.”
I hate it that he’s taking all the blame. “You didn’t neglect shit! You were still here protecting me. You told me I had to stay inside the room, so I did. What?!” I flare at Nik, who’s frowning at me. “We followed the rules. You didn’t say the door had to be closed.”
His jaw tightens and his claws extend around the edges of the tray before he pushes it into my hands. It’s heavy, laden down with a steaming pot of traxilla stew, more of those damn greens I’ve been choking down daily, some still-warm-from-the-oven tili wafers, and bottled drinks. With very deliberate enunciation, he says, “The door must be closed.”
He shuts it in my face, and I hear it lock. Then there’s a low exchange of words outside. Finally, silence, which I assume means Nik has walked away.
“Aqen?” I call tentatively through the door. There’s no reply, but I hear a boot scrape over the stones. “Do you want some of this food? There’s a lot.”
He doesn’t answer.
I sit on the floor with my back against the door, flipping through our drawings. His purple stepfamily. The yellow blossoms in my grandma’s lawn. My puppydog and his knives. I put them away with his crunched-up scroll.
I eat my breakfast. And I try not to cry. I want to comm Tamira, but I don’t. She’s blissfully happy, and I don’t want to shit on her honeymoon. I also don’t want to tell Fen that Aqen almost destroyed his letter and then left it behind. I have it tucked away for when he’s ready to read it, but I’m not sure he’s ever going to be ready.
Nik sleeps somewhere else. It’s stupid, but I hate that he doesn’t come back to the room. I’m so goddamn lonely by the end of the day, even the company of that asshole sounds good. Oh well. It’s not like I want to share a bed with him. He’s a terrible sleeper, all elbows and nightmares.
I don’t see him the next day, either. Aqen delivers the tray to me, avoiding eye contact as he hands it over. He picks up the empty one and turns to leave without saying a word.
“How’s it going? Did you get in trouble?” I ask.
“No.”
“Any update on the negotiations with the Eye?”
“No.”
“Do you want your scroll back? I saved it for you.”
“No.”
That’s all I get, and then he’s gone. The next day is the same. I pore over comm transcripts and sketch, but my stomach hurts, I’m so lonely. The fourth day, I just spend in bed feeling sorry for myself. The fifth day, I finally break down and comm Tamira.
“Oh, honey,” she says the second she sees me. Her sympathetic tone pushes me over the edge, and I instantly burst into tears, something I haven’t let myself do. “What’s wrong?”
Between embarrassing, gulpy sobs, I choke out, “He’s got me locked in here, and he won’t let anyone talk to me, and I can’t doanything to help, and I’m bored out of my mind! I used up my whole sketchbook, and I don’t have any more paper.”
“How long have you been locked in there?”
“Since we talked before.”
