His coldness hurt more than Julian’s disapproval. “I was relieved of my duties today,” I said.
Ezra exhaled sharply through his nose, shaking his head. “Today,” he repeated, as if it bore some significance.
We reached a place where the boulders stacked high over our heads and formed a sort of wall around us on three sides. Feeling reasonably sheltered from whatever danger there was in the woods, I wrenched my hand from his. “You’re acting strange.”
“How would you know?” he snapped, looking up and around like he expected to see someone peering down on us from the towering trees.
“I wouldn’t, would I? I don’t know you.” My voice thinned with frustration. “I don’t even know where you live!”
His gaze turned back to me, eyes widening slightly, before he coughed out a quiet laugh and shook his head. “I live in the barn behind Ainsley’s place, or at Beatrice’s when she’s expecting a birth at night. Sometimes I camp in a hammock in the woods when the weather is warm. Why, were you planning on mailing me a package?”
My gaze scoured his face for signs that he was lying, and it was only then that I noticed the smudges of exhaustion under his brown eyes. There was something drawn about his features that likely mirrored my own.
“You didn’t sleep last night.”
His gaze shuttered for a split second before he grinned. “What are you insinuating, Apprentice?”
I punched his arm.
“Ow.” He recoiled, rubbing the spot where I’d likely hurt my knuckles more than I’d hurt him.
“Another baby?”
“What?” He tilted his head. “What baby?”
I rolled my eyes. “Did someone have another baby last night?”
He stared for a moment. “Oh. No. Not last night.”
“Are you going to tell me why you dragged me away from the people in the woods?”
“I was afraid they were bandits.”
“But the bandits don’t attack the town. They go after trains.”
“Who told you that?” he asked, his gaze once more searching the trees around us.
“Ainsley. When I was at her house.”
I wondered if I imagined a faint flush at Ezra’s neck or if it was a trick of the light dappling him through the canopy above. “Well, she should have warned you that sometimes they raid the work camp.”
She had. But that was beside the point. “We’re not at the work camp.”
Ezra let out an exasperated sigh and slid down the rock to sit in the bed of dry leaves that had gathered in the crevice between the boulders. “Would you rather I’d left you there to be discovered by them?”
“So you’recertainthey were bandits.”
“Why are you so exhausting?”
“Why are you so exhausted?” I asked in return.
“I couldn’t sleep last night,” he said, a sudden weariness in his voice that could only be sincere. “And you don’t look any better, by the way.”
I let myself sink beside him, delighted to find that the leaves formed a gentle, if slightly damp, cushion beneath me. “I was forbidden to sleep last night.”
His eyes widened. “Now that’s a House of Industry tradition I’ve never heard of.”
My fingers curled around a few dead leaves, but I resisted the urge to throw them at him. “It was a consequence. I was too candid with the Senior Conductor about my … concerns. Your concerns, I suppose.”
