Zara: I’ll get it out of you sooner or later.
I scoffed, putting down my phone and considering the ceiling again. Therewasn’tanything to tell. But I was also right. I could use another friend, and it seemed like she didn’t mind me too much.
With that thought settled, I closed my eyes and allowed myself to fall asleep.
Chapter 8
Savla
It was late afternoon, the kind where the light hit the rooftops just right—warm, gold, and too pretty for the kind of work I was doing. Delicate, tiny work that had me so focused I couldn’t even glance at the perfect sunset. Ribbon was sprawled near my feet, belly-up, looking entirely unhelpful as usual.
I was halfway through tempering the metal on a small carving—a cluster of tiny flowers forged from scrap to be used as a circlet for a dainty female head that bore absolutelynoresemblance to anyone I knew in real life *cough, cough*—when I heard footsteps on the stairs. Light ones. Careful, but definitely not an orc’s.
The part of my chest that had been having a gnawing, achy sensation in it eased at once. The instinctive piece of my brain,that I currently refused to acknowledge, knew exactly who it was. The door creaked open, and before I could even look up, a familiar voice said softly, “Oh. Wow.”
I sighed. “This isn’t a public gallery.”
Hanna stood there, blinking as though she’d stepped through the wrong door and found herself in another world. Which, to be fair, she kind of had. Her hair was tied up messily, and her dress was dusted with something that was could’ve been either flour or some powdered ingredient for a potion. She looked more witchy at the moment. Curious, slightly chaotic and entirely too alive for my quiet space. Too beautiful, too.
“It’s a beautiful space,” she said, eyes sweeping over everything. “The last time I came, it was so dark that I... Well, I figured I’d been imagining it, to be honest.” She shrugged her beautiful, curved shoulders that I wouldneverwant to run my tusks along.
“I was just trying to find some air. The coven kitchens smell like ten different kinds of mushroom stew,” she continued, and I made a face.
“Air’s free,” I said, not looking up from my work. Or, more correctly,pretendingI hadn’t been looking up at her. “Just don’t touch anything sharp.” The warning was more a tease than anything else, but she wouldn’t be able to tell from my tone.
She ignored my warning completely, stepping closely to the nearest table. Her gaze flicked over the rows of metal miniatures that I’d been working on. I’d started experimenting with metal as an accompaniment for some of my more intricate pieces, but I was finding that while it was soothing for accessories and add-ons, it didn’t give me the same pleasant frame of mind that wood did.
Still, I’d created quite a few pieces as my experiments had carried on. Warriors frozen mid-battle, creatures from old Hellplane myths and even a carved wooden scene of the clangathering hall with tiny metal trinkets and embellishments.
“You made these?” she asked, running her delicate fingers over the pieces. My own fingers clenched in response, but I looked away quickly.
“Mm.”
“They’re incredible,” she said softly. “Detailed, but… gentle.”
I glanced up at that, thrown by the word. “Gentle?” I asked, my voice disbelieving. My art had been calledmanydifferent things, and not all of them good, butgentlewas new.
She smiled a little. “Most warriors I’ve met don’t carve tiny flowers or give toads a safe place to stay.”
At the mention of toads, Ribbon chose that exact moment to hop toward his newest nemesis—a half-finished metal sculpture of avery largefrog. He gave it one suspicious croak, then tried to bite it—as usual.
Hanna gasped, reaching for him immediately. “Ribbon, no!”
She bent down and shooed him gently, laughing as he blinked up at her, utterly unrepentant. “You could hurt yourself biting that, silly thing.”
I leaned back, crossing my arms. “You two are going to get along disgustingly well, aren’t you?”
She looked up at me, grinning, and it was like a gut punch to my chest.
There’s the smile. The real one. The one that’s been missing. The one that I’ve only seen a few times when we’re alone.
“He just has great taste. He knows good company when he sees it,” she said with a teasing tone.
“The roof’s not for socializing,” I muttered, uncomfortable with the roiling emotions inside me. The relief and the joy. I turned back to my tools.
“Then it’s lucky I’m not socializing. I’m just… existing nearby,” she quipped.
I shot her a look over my shoulder. “That’s a very specificform of trespassing.”
