His eyes roll back down to his work. “She was excited. She invited you. Then you never showed up this morning.”
First of all, how early do girls’ daysstart? I’ve literally just rolled out of bed, told Samson I was heading to town, and set off with Yami. It is amodest…almost noon.
Okay, maybe I overslept. Maybe battling through the Cosmic Mines all day yesterday while skirmishing with my thoughts about what to do next with myeight-heartedSamson took a lot out of me.
It, however, also put a lot into my bag. Gemstones galore.
Which is, of course, why I’m here.
You sell your mine stuff to Austin. His dialogue implies irritable awe. It’s my favorite thing that the dev coded in Austin being annoyed by how awesome you are when you sell all your fancy stuff to him.
I’m ready to take everything he has and walk away as a millionaire.
But first. “I don’t…remember being invited?”
Austin moves his chunk of metal to a shining anvil, lifts a slender hammer and a fatter one, then—very carefully, with a shocking precision, begins tapping a dent into the chunk. “Citrus,” he says, focus latched onto the silver material as sweat beads crawl down his cheek, “do you not check your mail?”
I tense. “I…um…”
The distress in his sigh actually, genuinely, burns me more than the sheets of molten air congesting in this room. “I’ll tell my poor sister you don’t hate her.”
“She thinks I hate her?” I blurt.
“Well, she has been inviting you out for a while now, without a single response. She was hopeful this time that things would be different, since we had lunch together recently. But no, things were not different. So. Yeah. She thinks you hate her by proxy of beingmysister.” He glares, for half a second, because the metal he’s working on is very important to him. “If you hate me, you better not take an ounce of that out on her. She’s completely different from me. Completely innocent. Got it?”
“Yeah…I know. I like Aurelia. I’m sorry. I had no idea she was sending me letters. I haven’t checked my mail in…weeks.”
Stiff, he nods. “Make sure she knows that.”
“Why didn’t she say anythingatlunch the other day?”
His auburn brow arches as he deftly turns the metal with the hammers. “Why would she put you on the spot like that? It’s polite to make requests via letter because then you can respond via letter. It’s easier to gather your thoughts and easier to reference what was actually said. Spoken words are fleeting.”
That…is brilliant on so many levels. I can’t believe I never realized it before. In a community where you see everyone constantly and can find anyone just about any time of the day,they communicate through letters for the same reasons I’d text my boss instead of calling whenever I had to ask for a day off.
Those messages would go something like: Dying. Mercy. Forgive me.
He’d throw a thumb down reaction, and I’d pass out from fever, hoping I still had a job when I got up.
I am frightened by what is in my mailbox. I can’t remember the last time I opened it. The fact it doesn’t make a noise when it’s got something in it is actually quite detrimental to my receiving the contents. The little red flag that goes up and down really should be larger.
While I’m marveling at how swiftly guilt and dread can get their talons in my flesh, Austin tucks the metal piece back under a bed of coals, and turns to me. “Weren’t you taught any manners?”
My head shakes. “I really wasn’t. I’m sorry. Genuinely. I didn’t know, and I’d never mean to hurt Aurelia.”
His eyes narrow, but he nods sharply. Again. “I appreciate the sentiment. Why are you here?”
Oh. Right.
I head toward the counter at the front of the room, pull off my backpack, and will the hoard from the mines to tumble out onto the slab of wood when I dump it upside down.
Austin cusses, taken aback as the mound continues to grow. And grow. Yikes. There was a ton more than I thought, actually. I guess it was dusk by the time we got back… No wonder I overslept.
Once the final rock tumbles out, I say, “I’m here because I wanted to sell these.”
Austin’s attention flies up to my face. “What?”
“There are garnets, emeralds, a ruby.” According to what my inventory labeled everything as when I checked. “I’m still on the hunt for a diamond, and a tourmaline, but that’s negligibleinformation.” I laugh, clear my throat, rest my bag against my leg, where Yami sniffs at it before nuzzling my fingers. “Tada.”
