I take a breath. “Auri, our friendship is based on honesty. If we can’t be honest with each other, we can’t trust each other. So let’s start over. Have you been outside?”
She nods. “Yes, but not for a long time.”
“Have you seen Nox?”
Her nod is a little more slow. “Rauk used to take me to see him and would let me sit on Nox with him.”
“Anything else?” I ask.
She shakes her head. “I still don’t get to leave the castle, though.”
“And that is something I will be talking to your brotherabout.” I look back down at the drawing she made and change topics. “Oh good; these flowers don’t look too complicated. I can try those. What are you going to paint?”
She's quiet a moment. “I’m sorry, Harper.”
I reach out and squeeze her hand. “It’s already forgotten. Now. Let’s get to work. When you pick a color, let me know.” I pick up the yellow jar again, happy I get to use it. It just looks so bright and fun. I dip my brush in the paint and start. A few minutes later, I step back and frown. “That looked so much better in my head. What do you think?”
Auri’s already staring at my flowers. “They’re...good, Harper.”
“You paused,” I accuse, pointing my brush at her. “And then you said good. Everybody knows good means it’s terrible.”
The corner of her lips tug up. “They’re great.”
I look back at my flowers again. “I like them.”
“So do I.”
I look down at her. “Yeah?” She nods. “Good. Now what color?”
“Blue.”
I bend over and grab the jar of blue paint and a paintbrush. “Okay, Kiddo, show me what you can do.”
We work side by side all afternoon. I don’t deviate from my flowers, mostly because I’m scared to try anything else. I finally branch out and try a tree next. “What’s the brown thing?” Auri asks sometime later, when we finally take a break.
I frown. “It’s a tree.”
“Oh.”
I look at my tree. “You can’t even tell what it is? This is the trunk, and these are the branches.”
“It’s...definitely brown,” she says.
I look at my tree again. “Well, yeah. Trees are brown. I mean I can add stuff to it, but...” I put my hands on my hips. “It’s a tree!”
And then she does something completely unexpected. She laughs. I freeze, or at least I want to; but I force myself to not make a big deal out of it. When I face her all the way, she laughs harder. “What?”
She looks up at me, eyes bright. “You have brown paint all over your cheek. Oh, and a few specks of yellow.”
I reach up and feel the crusty texture of paint on my cheek. I look at my brush that still has brown paint on it, and in a move too quick for her to stop, I swipe the brush across her cheek. Her mouth drops open. “I can’t believe you just did that.”
I grin. “Sure you can.”
She suddenly swipes at my arm, and I look down to see that the back of my hand is now blue. “Oh, Auri. You did not just do that.”
She starts to wheel backwards, but I dart forward to get her other cheek. She shrieks and pulls away, and I end up getting her nose instead. “My nose?”
“It looks beautiful,” I tell her with a laugh.
