My brow furrowed as I watched her. Noxily? Was that off planet? I’d never heard of it, and I’d heard of a lot of places, had studied a lot of places.
“Noxily?”
The keeper’s face went brighter, and I got the sense that she hadn’t meant to say that. “Noxily is, um, a world of mine.”
My brows rose, and I slid my arms across my chest, a flicker of amusement building in my chest. “A world of yours? Do you have many?”
“No, I write stories. Illustrated stories. With my own drawings. I’ve done it since I was a child. Noxily is a world I created. Me and Luc did actually. We would dream up all these things, and it grew and grew. And it became something more. And suddenly it became everything, how we got through. And…”
She trailed off, and I found my gaze rapt on her, watching the way her mouth formed words, the way her eyelashes swept down, how the flush grew and grew down her neck. I studied her again…and then again, trying to find something I didn’t know I was even looking for. I frowned.
“Sorry,Kyzaire,” she said, throwing me a smile that was both disarmingly bright and mildly desperate, as if she would do anything to disappear, to get away from me. My lips parted, having never seen a smile quite like it.
And suddenly my mind caught on Erina, this keeper under my employ, and it held. I feared when that happened because when my attention was caught on something, I didn’t let it go.
“I’m almost finished cleaning the glass, but I’ll come back later to?—”
“No,” I said quickly. “Stay.” I smiled when she looked startled. “Please.”
Her eyes flickered back and forth between my own beforethey dropped away, as if remembering herself. “Of course,Kyzaire.”
I remembered why I was there.
“Erina. Look at me,” I asked. Slowly, her gaze rose, though it was quizzical. “I wanted to apologize to you for what happened earlier this afternoon.”
Her cheeks blushed harder, redder than I thought was possible for a human. “There’s no need to?—”
“But there is,” I said. There would be some who believed it wasn’t my place toneedto apologize to keepers. But I was my mother’s son, and I believed otherwise. “I didn’t know anyone was in this section of the keep. We should have been more discreet, and I’m sorry that I put you in an uncomfortable position, one you never should’ve been put in as one of my keepers. The…well, the proverbial fog has cleared, and I’m ashamed of how I handled that.”
Erina’s lips were parted as she stared at me.
“What is it?” I asked after a long moment of quiet.
“Nothing. It’s just that…no one has ever apologized to me before. It’s strange. I don’t…I don’t know what to say.”
My lips quirked, but a bloom of sadness followed. “You usually decide to accept the apology or to reject it.”
“Then I accept it,” she said slowly. “But there is no need for an apology. I was lost in thought and didn’t see anyone enter the room, so I didn’t think to knock. This is your home,Kyzaire. You are free to, um, enjoy it however you wish.”
A sweet sentiment and yet…
“That’s where you’re wrong. This might be my keep, but I do share it with many, including yourself. It won’t happen again,” I told her. My gaze went down to the floor, at the broken chunks of pottery from the green vase Lydrasa had purposefully broken. “Let me help you with this.”
I crouched and began to sweep the shards into a large pile with the sides of my palms.
“No, it’s all right,Kyzaire. I’ll do it,” Erina said quickly.
“I insist.”
“It’s just that I—I have a system,” she continued, sounding nervous as she crouched opposite of me. “I’m sorting the pieces, you see.”
My gaze flicked over to the small pile that was in fact grouped in a peculiar way. I leveraged her another look, brow furrowing. “You’re…sorting the pieces?”
“I’m going to try to repair it,” she answered, sniffling once more as she snagged a large piece away from my hand and placing it next to another piece in her collected grouping. My lips almost twitched.
“I’ll have Maudoric replace it with another—it’s no bother. No one even comes in here,” I dismissed.
“But I do,” she said quietly. “I… This was my favorite vase in the keep.”
