“You could useyourgyre safely, though,” he continues. “Come back to the castle. Get yourself out of that room.”
I inspect my surroundings. The hallway I entered through nowappears to lead into the floor, and I pull my gaze away. Better to look at what’s directly in front of me, and nothing else. “No.”
“Why not?”
I don’t allow myself to linger on that question for more than a moment. My gyre would only take me back to him, and if I ever managed to leave again, I’d simply return here. I’d still have to get throughthis.
“Because,” I say. “I don’t want to. I only contacted you so I’d have someone to talk to. Not so you could come get me. Or convince me to go back there.”
He lets go of a long exhale. “Is this really my only option? Talking?”
“No. I always could flip my orb again and do this alone, in total silence.”
He grumbles and looks away, massaging his temples with fingers that somehow remind me of poetry and war and extravagance, all at the same time.
When he finishes ruminating, he says, “Fine. All right. What do you want me to talk about, then?”
The thrill of my victory warms me. “I don’t know. Maybe the stars you wished on when you were a boy. Talk about that.”
“I already told you what I wished for,” he says, the words sharp with warning.
I roll my eyes. “That’s not what I mean. I rememberthatpart. Very well. But maybe tell me why. Why wish on stars if you don’t believe in a higher power? If you don’t have faith in Ishanna at all?”
A pause. “You want me to talk about…religion?”
“Why not?” Better to discuss something we fundamentally disagree on. Because while I need to hear his voice, I can’t risk connecting with him, not after what happened last night. “Because I’ve never understood how you can just believe in…nothing.”
“Who says I believe in nothing?”
“You’re fae.” I fish a pebble from my pocket and tip it down the stairs. It bounces down to the landing below, which connects to two more flights—one ascending, one descending. From the looks of it, I can make my way down safely, then decide from there. “Everyone knows the fae are godless.”
He grumbles. “Just because I’m godless doesn’t mean I believe innothing.” With my wrist now tilted away, his voice floats to me as if from nowhere. And yet it’s everywhere, guiding me, pulling me through this.
I shuffle down the stairs on hands and knees, part of me praying I’ll stay adhered to the steps while the other part focuses on formulating a response. “All right. Then what do you believe in?”
A pause. “Are you sure you want to know?”
I reach the landing and toss a pebble up the ascending flight. It takes a hard right halfway to the top, sailing across most of the room before cracking against another staircase. The echo ricochets, as clean and sharp as the snap of a bone.
I shudder. Definitely not going that way.
“Yes,” I say. “I’m sure.”
Rustling emanates from my bracelet, but I can’t risk the distraction of looking, and can only guess at what Amriel’s doing. Repositioning himself, maybe. Lying down in whatever darkened room he’s in. Curling around his orb, orienting himself around his lifeline to me.
At least, that’s how it goes in my imagination.
“I don’t know how to describe it to a human,” he says carefully. “It would be easier to show you.”
A soft snort escapes me. “Well, that’s not an option.”
“Why not? Because I’ll never see you again?”
“Exactly. So find the words.” I push a pebble down the descending flight. It turns sharply upward at the bottom and clicks against a landing overhead. Not a bad drop, but the gravity reversal will be tricky to navigate. Maybe if I get on my back, crabwalk down these stairs…
I flip over, feeling my way down with my hands, my belly pointed at…the ceiling? Is that still the ceiling? I don’t know anymore. At the bottom, gravity loosens its hold, then abruptly tugs on me from the opposite direction. I go plunging upward, managing to swing my arms and legs around in time to land on all fours.
My head swims. My stomach swirls. I take a moment to reorient myself, then issue myself a silent congratulations.
