“Good morning,” she says.
“Did you sleep well?”
I study her while I wait for her answer. Her skin is clear. The bruises are gone, faded to nothing, and there’s color in her cheeks that comes from rest, good food, and sleeping for as long as she wants. She looks healthy, and it makes me feel better that living with me is helping her heal.
“I slept well, thank you.” A pause. She’s trying to decide if she should say more. “And you?”
“I slept well too.”
And that’s the whole conversation. Every word she gives me has to be begged out of her, and I’m sitting here with a head full of things I want to say and don’t know how. Of course, Irrva was right.
I nod, and she gives me a small smile. I realize she’s feeling uncertain because to walk out the door to our quarters, she has to walk past me.
I reach for the plate on the table. There’s a slice of strawberry cake on it, Irrva’s recipe, which I set aside before Jarrvik finished the rest. I stand, bring it to her, and hold it out.
“My sister made this. I saved you a slice.”
“Thank you.”
She takes the plate, and I watch her eyes move toward her room. The shift is small, just a glance, but I know what it means. She’s going to take the cake, disappear behind her door, and eat it alone. So much for my plan to have her to myself for a few minutes.
“Would you like to eat it here?” I say it too fast, but I don’t care. “There’s lemonade as well. I’ll pour you a glass.”
She looks up at me, bites her lower lip without realizing, then finally nods. I try not to let out a breath of relief. She walks to the table, sets the plate down, and climbs onto the armchair across from mine. It’s not exactly easy for her, but she manages and positions herself on her knees to better reach the table.
She’s stiff, her back straight, and her shoulders held just so, the posture of someone who is making herself stay. I move around her gently, reaching for the carafe and the glasses, keeping my movements unhurried so I don’t startle her. It’s not hard. My joints won’t let me move faster, anyway.
The carafe shakes in my hand when I pour. My fingers don’t close well enough to hold it steady, and lemonade sloshes over the rim of the glass and runs across the table. I try to correct and it only gets worse, my wrist locking at the wrong angle.
Sorina reaches out and puts her hand over mine.
Her fingers press against the back of my hand, small and warm on my cracked stone skin, and she holds me steady. My hand stops shaking. The tremor dies under her palm, and the carafe sits level in my grip while she waits. I can feel every point of contact. Her thumb against my knuckle, the flat of her palm across the ridge of my fingers, the light pressure of her hold. I know she’s just being helpful. To her, this is a reflex, a practical gesture, the same instinct that makes a person catch a cup before it falls. She has no idea what it does to me. Her hands are so small and frail, so gentle, and her touch is a balm to my stiffening body.
“Here, let me help you,” she says as she takes the carafe from me.
There’s no rush and no flinching away. She pours lemonade into both glasses and sets the carafe down.
I let out something I hope sounds like a chuckle.
“I’m clumsy. Sorry.”
She doesn’t answer, just pushes one of the glasses toward my side of the table. I sit down across from her, open the book again and let it rest in my lap as if I’m going to keep reading. She picks up a fork and takes a bite of the cake.
“What are you reading?” she asks.
I turn the book so she can see the cover. It’s an old, leather-bound tome, the spine cracked and soft from decades of handling, with a hand-drawn illustration of a cut stone on the front.
“It’s about the spiritual meaning of gemstones.”
She raises an eyebrow. “I wouldn’t have thought you were spiritual.”
I smile. “I don’t know about that. I’ve read all the books in Steinheim, and this was one of the few I hadn’t gotten to yet. Might as well.”
“Tell me what it says.”
“Name a stone.”
She thinks, her fork hovering over the cake.
