My head tilted in curiosity and I waited.
A deep sigh preceded Jallina’s explanation. “Everything has changed now, Kimber. You and Elex are not around because you’re off being important at the temple, but the rest of us have splintered apart. And not for the reasons you think. Not because you and Elex were the glue of the group—”
I laughed. We weren’t. We so very much were not.
“But we have changed. Our group has…morphed.”
“Morphed?”
She swirled the coffee this time and nodded slowly. “Morphed. Like rock under pressure. I guess none of us ever saw it because we were young and used to each other. Once you and Elex disappeared up to the temple, we all came to odds.” A little chuckle escaped her. “Drez and Milgran came to more than odds. I think they are both still sporting black eyes.”
“What on S’Kir happened?”
“The temple, if, she looked through the coffee shop before looking back at me. “Let’s talk elsewhere. There are ears here.”
I nodded, but I wasn’t reassured. There were ears everywhere. I didn’t understand why she was so worried about being overheard, either.
Passing a dozen other little shops after paying for our drinks, Jallina stopped in front of a door that had nothing more than a mark in the corner.
I knew the mark well. It was the mark of the temple.
Jallina gave a furtive glance up and down the street before she pushed the door open and stepped inside.
It was as though I had stepped back into the temple I had walked away from angrily just an hour ago. The smells, the sights, the lighting. Everything was familiar. “What is this place?”
My friend didn’t answer right away. She swept her coat off her shoulders and hung it up before motioning for me to do the same.
She led me, still quiet, into the depth of the room and sat at a table. I sat down across from her, the question still hovering between us, unanswered.
A young man, dressed as an acolyte in the main temple, hurried over.
He gasped when he saw me and dropped into a deep bow.
“How may I serve you, Lady Raven, Mistress Topir?”
“Two coffees,” Jallina answered, and the acolyte disappeared.
When had I started thinking of acolytes as separate from myself?
Jallina finally answered my question. “This place is an outlier temple. It is a safe house, a place where people come if the temple is too far for them to walk or they fear something between here and there.”
My face must have given me away.
“You didn’t know about these, did you?”
“No. Not at all.”
Tracing a pattern in the wood of the table, Jallina took a moment to gather her thoughts. “When they call us infants, Kimber, they are right. We may be closing in on our first century, but we do not know the ins and outs of this world. There are still a lot of things we won’t know for a long time.”
I put a hand to my head. “I just had this conversation.”
“What?”
“With Mistress Danai. It’s why I walked away from the temple for a while. I needed to clear my head.”
“She’s right if that’s what she told you.”
The acolyte placed the mugs of hot, rich coffee on the tabletop between us and left a plate of sugars and creamers.
