“If you’ve never met one, what makes you think I’m Similian?”
The Dark Worlder lets out a startling laugh. “Even someone half as brilliant as I could figure out what you are. Those Boundary hunters back there probably have one brain cell between them, and they obviously caught on pretty quickly.”
His eyes rove over me, running from my hairline to my toes. My skin tingles.
“Even if you were dressed normally, you give yourself away as soon as you open your mouth.”
I frown down at my jumpsuit, the standard issue khaki now smeared with dirt and a substance that looks suspiciously like blood. He’s right. Clothing never occurred to me in my frantic run out of Similis and I foolishly thought I’d be able to pick up Dark World mannerisms quickly enough to avoid attention. Foolishly thought they wouldn’t be much different from Similian habits. I assumed the Boundary hunters only knew what I was due to my proximity to Similis, but maybe there was more to it than that.
“Also, your skin,” he adds, almost an afterthought, “you’re really quite pale.”
“So?” I retort, glaring at him. He’s made his point, there is no need to insult my looks while doing it. “There are people of all colors in the Dark World.”
But Murph had also said something about my skin, hadn’t he? I can change my clothes, and perhaps fake my way through Dark World customs, but changing my actual biology is unlikely.
The man laughs again, and it skitters under my skin. I see why it’s against the Keys, with its way of belittling. “All colors, yes. But no scars, no callouses, no windburn, no sunspots? We work hard for everything we have here, and our skin tells the story. Your skin says you’ve never worked a day in your life.”
My cheeks feel hot. I forget that he’s violent—that his face is made of stone. I forget to be afraid of him. Instead, righteous indignation surges through me. How dare he arrogantly assume that just because he knows a few generalities of Similian life, he presumes to know me? “You don’t know anything about me. You don’t know if I’ve worked or what I’ve done with my life. You don’t even know my name. So, you can take your assumptions and shove them—"
“What is your name?” he interrupts. His voice is low, and his eyes are bright, and for some reason, I tell him.
“Mirren.”
“Mirren,” he says my name like a breath and a shock of warmth shoots through my stomach. I look down, embarrassed and uncertain, but if he notices, he thankfully ignores it. “It’s unwise to give your name away so freely in the Dark World.”
Irritation ripples through me again. “Are you saying I can’t trust you? You did save my life.”
“Maybe you can’t. It’s too soon to tell, don’t you think?”
This is not an answer, and I am about to tell him so, when his two companions stride into the clearing. One, a girl, is shockingly tall, all legs and elbows with full lips and a regal-looking face. She blows at a piece of curly black hair that has escaped her bun, while the second, a lanky young man with a smattering of freckles and a shock of copper hair, lectures her.
“If I have to hear one more word about flower arrangements, I am swearing off her bakery for life,” he is saying as he hops lithely over a fallen tree. “Especially with everything that’s happened. I swear, I’m never getting married.”
“You’d have to find someone to marry you first,” the girl replies smartly. “Besides, Evie doesn’tknowwhat’s happened, so she can talk about her wedding if she pleases.” The girl’s dark eyes land on me and go wide.
“Well, if I do, we’re jumping over a broom and calling it—"
The copper haired man watches the girl’s face go slack jawed and follows her gaze. He gives a quick yelp and runs toward me. I throw my hands up over my head, squeezing my eyes shut but he doesn’t touch me. Instead, he stops short and stares at me in abject wonderment. “You’re awake!” He exclaims excitedly, before turning toward the Dark Worlder. “She’s awake!”
“So it would seem,” the man replies lazily.
“She really gave you that bruise?” the copper haired one asks incredulously. He eyes my feet, which I now realize, are bare. “Anda black eye? She’s all of five feet tall.”
The Dark World man rubs his jaw. “Well, I didn’t expect a frightened little Lemming to haul off and kick me in the face,” he answers acerbically. Indeed, a deep purple splotch spreads out along his jawline and a matching ring circles one of his eyes. I assumed it was from his scuffle with the Boundary hunters and an odd sort of pride fills my chest as I realize it was from me. Proof I fought back. That I left a mark.
“Besides,” the man continues, “she’s not as delicate as she looks. She knocked out Eulogius with the butt of a revolver.”
The copper haired man looks impressed.
“Did you find out who she is?” The girl directs toward the Dark Worlder. Her voice is abrasive, and her eyes are demanding. Her velvet black skin shines in the midday sun that pours through the canopy. “If she’s a Lemming?” She spits the word with distaste and if I had any question before, her reaction confirms it is most certainly derogatory in nature.
The Dark Worlder nods, which seems to incense the girl and further excite the other man. “A real one?” he chirps, “where did you even find her?”
“I have a name,” I mumble irritably. I’ve never liked being discussed as if I’m not in the room, something Farrah and Jakoby practice quite often. Talking about how well I’m faring in the Community as if I’m a piece of furniture, rather than a living person.
The copper haired man rounds on me, his warm hazel eyes as wide as saucers. “Of course, you do! I bet it’s something weird. Similians are always naming their children weird names,” he says knowledgeably to the girl. She sighs and pointedly ignores him.
I look to the Dark World man, but he seems in no hurry to provide his companions with the information I foolishly bestowed on him. Maybe I really can trust him with my name.
