And grows with another crack, and grows, and then the stone of the ice house is starting to crumble—
Quickly I reverse the kata, sucking the flow of magic back into me.
The ice implodes from within.
Which for some reason causes the outside of it to bulge farther even with a hollow center, and the ice house shakes.
We all freeze, waiting for it to settle, to see if anything else happens.
Then the ice inside just sort of... crumbles.
Zan starts shaking with laughter.
I scowl. Okay, so maybe what I was planning for a volcano was alittlemuch for a tiny ice house.
“I’ll bring Nomi more ice,” I mutter.
Sunani stares at us, wide-eyed.
Zan tells her, “You should see what Yora does to eggs.”
“Hey!”
Sunani says faintly, “Perhaps I’d better handle Teren’s crafts.”
“Well,” Zan says prosaically, “you definitely can’t see what Yora does to blankets.”
“Unfair! There were no blankets on the bed when I exploded it!”
“We certainly wouldn’t know now.”
Sunani asks, “Was that an accident too?”
“Oh, no, that was very much on purpose,” I explain. “We only need one bed, after all.”
I stick my tongue out at Zan, who rolls his eyes at me while smiling.
And Sunani, finally, starts snickering herself.
Ha! Iknewshe had a backbone and that we could be friends! Take that, worrywart Teren!
...Even if her amusement is somewhat at my expense.
Sunani stops abruptly. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be laughing when Teren is gone—”
“No, absolutely not,” I cut her off. “The Order doesn’t get to take any more from us. They don’t get to steal our joy. And they don’t get to keep what they’ve taken.”
Sunani looks at me and slowly nods. “Yes. Let’s get to work, then.”
Despiteherbeauty,Sunani’spresence near me doesn’t seem to set Zan’s instincts off. Regardless, Zan is too twitchy with all the looks angled at me to stay without snarling, whichIenjoy but is frustrating the hells out of him. So once Sunani and I have the booth set up, Zan takes off to go retrieve more ice for Nomi before all her food goes bad, and check in with her about how things are progressing.
I ignore the gut-wrenching feeling of bereftness as he walks away, because I’m not going to trap him with me, either, even if being separated feels almost physically painful.
And leaves Sunani and me alone at a table that absolutely no one is approaching.
The awkward silence between us—two people who have no idea what to say to each other—is beginning to feel oppressive, which pisses me off enough that I’m able to gird my loins and break it.
But what I blurt is more revealing than I meant.
