“Good, there's still hope for you. Off you go now.”
Izaiah helped me back to my room, where Sarina rushed to fuss over me. She was wearing the bracelet again.
Weird as fuck, indeed.
Even after socializing with them both, the mild sting persisted, both to my pride and ankle. But as I drifted off that night, it occurred to me I had something here that I had never had before.
I had people who I trusted.
Chapter 15
Reflections can Reveal
It wasn’t more than a single day later that I was reminded there were people who I shouldn’t trust, too.
I was taking it easy, eating lunch with Henrik and Orin when Yeshar approached our bench.
“—and that’s when he spilled it all down his soup catcher.” Henrik wiggled his scruffy chin for emphasis. “Got it all over his clothes too.”
“That’s not even the best part,” Orin added. “He started choking when he spilled it, and got parfait and spittle all over Instructor Weavir too!”
I laughed, picturing Instructor Penbrook’s beard smeared with chunks of fruit and yogurt.
“Just who I was hoping to see,” Yeshar crowed, shoving Orin’s plate onto the ground and seating himself onto the flat bench beside us. The leftovers from Orin’s lunch tumbled onto the dirt.
“Hey, I wasn’t done with that,” Orin protested, bending to pick up the mess. Yeshar ignored him, eyes gleaming as he leaned in toward me.
“I had an interesting discussion with Nikolach on this.” Yeshar pulled a familiar mirror out.
My pulse spiked, and the aftertaste of lunch soured on my tongue. He’d been in my bedroom and stolen my mirror. When? And how had Nikolach gotten a missive mirror inside the Reformatory?
Yeshar subtly straightened the mirror on the bench, tapping it.
He’d chosen to steal my mirror deliberately, even though he likely already had his own. The unspoken threat was clear. I wasn’t safe even in my own bedroom at the outpost from Yeshar. He could get in anytime, and take whatever he wanted.
Orin was trying to eavesdrop from the tilted angle of his head while he scooped up the remains of his lunch. Had Henrik told him about our time in Reformatory?
There was a precipice ahead, but I couldn’t see the dropoff to the fall yet. I was on a collision course with the bottom of that ravine if I didn’t tread carefully, and I was walking blindfolded toward it.
“He had some very unfriendly things to say about you,” Yeshar continued. He kicked at some of the scraps that had fallen on the ground. Orin scowled but said nothing.
“Oh?” I said, trying for nonchalance.
“Yeah, he had quite the tale to tell about a missing Sentinel and his innocence around the whole affair. Seemed quite put out about the extra three months of mining he’s doing because of it. Not that I mind the extra customers while he stays there. But he made some surprising insinuations about your involvement.”
I was no longer walking blindly toward the precipice, I was jogging toward it. My heart caught up to the tempo of my feet in my imaginary jaunt right off the cliff.
“What missing Sentinel?” Henrik asked.
It was an overt attempt to change the topic. The news had spread like an annual illness through the ranks until everyone in the Reformatory had heard what happened. There was no way Henrik hadn’t heard about it. He was attempting to cover for me.
Just like old times.
Yeshar’s predatory stare turned toward Henrik, scrutinizing him instead of me. “A Sentinel disappeared a couple weeks before the Mistrun. Never left the Reformatory after his last shift. Had a wife who reported him missing.”
That was wrong, his wife hadn’t been the one who reported him missing. He wasn’t even married, or at least…he hadn’t worn a ring. Was Yeshar misinformed or deliberately testing me? I wasn’t about to contradict him. When avoiding potentially incriminating yourself, let someone else, anyone else, keep controlling the conversation instead.
Especially if their information was flawed.
