The interior was much, much smaller than I remembered. Climbing in first, I could scarcely imagine both Julian and Ezra fitting inside with me. For multiple days. Nevertheless, they followed, Ezra immediately hitting his head on the roof and Julian’s gaze shuttering to something distant and icy the moment he surveyed the threadbare interior.
“Surely it’s better than walking,” I offered as they shifted around, struggling to find a way to sit across from each other. They couldn’t manage it without their legs tangled and touching. I ended up crammed beside Julian, my feet tucked close to the bench on account of all the legginess they contributed to our painfully close quarters. Julian held a spare cushion like a shield.
The driver shut the door for us, but not before giving us a long leering look. Her cackling laughter carried through the side opening, where a flimsy curtain did little to keep the dust out. Drawn by twohorses, we started with a lurch and moved faster than I expected. A little thrill ran through me. When I peeked out the window at the dirt and grass and sparse trees whizzing by, the tightness around my heart released a little. Gravel kicked up, tapping like rain, and the gritty wind blew my hair into a wild puff.
Julian’s stilted voice pierced through the fleeting sense of freedom I felt with my face in the breeze. “You’ll make yourself ill like that.”
“She won’t. There’s nothing wrong with fresh air.”
“She isn’t breathing fresh air. She’s breathing dust.”
I sat back with a huff, crossing my arms. So much for freedom. With an angry flourish, I drew the curtain shut. It snapped like a flag, an apt illustration of the way I wanted to slap both of them. “We’ve not made it five minutes and you’re already bickering? I’m fine.”
Ezra’s gaze landed on my hair, and he bit back a smile.
The coach rocked and bumped. The motion was starting to grate at me, rattling my bones and chattering my teeth. Maybe this wasn’t better than walking.
“How far is it to the train station?” I asked.
“Two days,” Julian muttered.
Dread made my palms sweat. “Without stopping?”
“The coach is powered by horses, Josephine. They need to rest.”
“You don’t have to talk to her like that,” Ezra said, one arm braced against the cushion beside him and the other pressed against the door. Every time we hit a particularly deep rut, he winced.
“I don’t need defending.” My voice crackled out like a particularly hot thread of radiance. “He can talk to me any way he pleases, and I can deal with it however I please. Both of you ought to be worried I’ll kill you in your sleep.”
“There will be no sleeping in this stars-forsaken contraption,” Julian pointed out, sounding like he’d welcome death as an alternative. He held the cushion so tight, the leather dimpled, and his knuckles went bloodless.
My irritation subsided, draining like rain seeping into the ground. It left me tired. So very tired. It had only been a day since the fire. “I’m sorry,” I said quietly.
When Julian saw that I was speaking to him, his breath huffed with a little burst of irritation. “Why is that?”
“For …” I waved my hand in an unspecific embarrassed gesture that I hoped encapsulated not only my sympathy but my remorse for wanton behavior with Ezra in plain sight of anyone who happened to walk by, but more specifically in plain sight of Julian.
“How you conduct yourself is no longer my concern,” Julian said.
Ezra straightened, and I shot him a look that clearly communicated my lack of interest in any potential contribution from him to the conversation.
“Why is that?” I asked, anger resurfacing.
Julian’s mouth opened and then shut. His nostrils flared. “Our Mission burned. I’m not your Senior. I have no authority over you. I don’t believe I ever did,” he added.
This, somehow, disturbed me the most. I’d wanted to obey him and the tenets of the House when I’d arrived at Frostbrook. Painfully, earnestly so. Even now, when I recalled him sending me away, my insides folded in on themselves.
“I know damn well you don’t haveauthorityover me,” I gritted out. “But you’re—you’re allowed to have an opinion. I thought.” My teeth clicked together briefly. Then I pushed past the impulse to stop talking, possibly forever, and went on. “I suppose I thought we were becoming friends.”
“Why would you think that?”
Ezra’s leg trembled. Soon, no amount of glaring was going to contain him.
“Because I care for you.” Once I said it, the words weren’t so frightening. They felt much better on the outside of my body. I sank into thelumpy cushions, a knot in my chest loosening ever so slightly. “Honestly, I don’t know precisely why. But I do. I do quite a bit.”
With his mouth set tightly, Julian stared at perhaps the only spot in the coach that wasn’t covered by one of our limbs. “We’ve got work to do, and it won’t be easy. Sentiment will get us nowhere.”
I couldn’t help but linger on his choice of words, encouraged by the fact that he’d grouped us together for better or worse. “That’s not true. Sentiment has carried you all this way. No matter how devoted you are to your research, you were just as devoted to Maggie Taylor.” I went on despite his flinch. “It fueled you. I know it did. Sentiment is what makes us different from the Elders who don’t care what radiance is doing. We have to care and keep caring, or we’ll never succeed.”
