Laughing and cheering to find it empty, they all ran for the cabinets to find things to eat—crackers, fruit, cake, chocolate.
I rolled my eyes with a sigh when the doors closed behind us. “Wejusthad dinner.” It couldn’t have even been an hour.
But then again, I wouldn’t really mind trying a banana with whatever chocolate syrup Levana was squeezing over hers.
“Snacking’s different. C’mon,” March said as we went closer to the first aisle. Most everyone had already sat on it, and they talked like they always talked, one over the other. Three different stories were simultaneously being told by three different people at any given second.
“What’ll it be? Crackers? Cherries? Chocolate?” March asked when I hopped onto the edge of the isle, the only free spot between Mimi and Anika.
“Actually, I?—”
“No, don’t tell me.” March held up a finger. “I’ll be right back.”
He was—two minutes later, in his hands a small glass cup full of chocolate.
“Chocolate mousse,” he called it. “Pretty sure you’re going to like it.” He’d brought me a spoon, too.
“Thanks,” I said, looking at the mousse skeptically. I wasn’t sure if I’d tried something like it before, but it did smell delicious.
“Hey, I want some of that, too,” said Anika, and she’d been eating something white in her own cup, but she shoved her spoon in my mousse anyway, and tried it before I did.
She moaned. She closed her eyes. She screamed, and lastly—“Perfect!” she concluded.
And she was absolutely right.
It was heaven on my tongue the way it melted, so creamy and sweet. I tried not to be irritated with her every time she snuck a spoonful, but I failed. I wished she’d gotten her own—-but everybody was taking everybody’s food all around me.
In fact, the sound of everyone talking at once, and thefeelof being surrounded by so many loud individuals, to hear so much laughter…
It reminded me.
It reminded me of the junkyard and the dancing and the jokes.
Sparetime save me, I’d almostforgotten.
How was that even possible when it had been only a handful of days ago?
“Hey.” Silas stopped to March’s side, eyed my mousse.
I only had a spoonful left, so I said, “Get your own. This ismine.” Nobody was going to take the last bit from me—it wasn’t even fair.
Silas laughed, then flinched, and held onto his right shoulder with a hiss.
“What’s up, man? What happened?” March said, and attempted to touch Silas’s arm, but he immediately leaned away. “I just hurt it a little bit during sparring today, that’s all. I’m fine.”
Except hehadn’thurt anything during sparring today. None of us had.
“And I’m not planning to take your chocolate, Ora, only to ask you if you’ve gone to see Master Talik today, by any chance.”
The gears in my stomach malfunctioned like they sometimes did.
“Why?”
He shrugged, then flinched again—his shoulder wasdefinitely hurt. “Only curious.” I held his eyes, waiting a heartbeat if he’d say something else, but… “Well, did you?”
March’s eyes were on my face, too. He was right there—he could hear me, yet for some reason, I didn’t even consider lying to Silas. I was too curious to see what he’d say.
“I did. Only briefly.”
