Page 6 of Road To Runes

A wall of heat rushed to meet me when I stepped through the open doors. Soot coated the beams above, the smoke from the fire billowing out through a hole in the ceiling. A little way across the room, Laura stood hammering what looked like a dagger's blade on the anvil. Through her visor, she fixed the item with a concentrated stare, and her lips held a pursed line.

"Lose something?" I called, in between beats of her hammer.

Laura snapped out of her reverie and straightened up, letting the hammer's handle slide through her fist to the neck. She pulled up her visor with a sooty gloved hand and rolled her eyes.

"That damn cat. Can you put it on the bench?" Laura's words had a slight Edinburgh lilt to them left over from the first half of her childhood spent in the city. "I guess talking to her didn't work."

"It didn't." I put the jewellery down on the bench next to me and folded my arms. "I'm sorry. I'll keep nagging her."

"Think it'll do any good?" Laura snorted.

"Not a bit." I tried to take a deep breath, but the soot tickled my nose. "Hey, do you have a minute?"

Laura stiffened, and she put her hammer down among her other tools on a nearby bench. "Is it about Asher coming home?"

I pursed my lips, and I began involuntarily chewing on my tongue. "No."

"Oh." Laura clasped her hands together and swayed awkwardly from side to side. "Wanna go outside?"

"Please." I didn't know how she spent all day in this place without dying.

We went outside, Laura pulling off her gloves on the way to a nearby stone bench.

"Well, it's a little bit about...him," I said, as we sat down. "But mostly it's about us."

"Us?" Laura dusted a little soot out of her hair, taking a few locks between her fingers and frowned at the ends.

I whacked her gently with the back of my hand and she finally looked up. "I know I've been a bit distracted lately, and I don't want you to think that just because Asher and I broke up thatwecan't talk anymore. Like we used to."

Laura clasped her hands together and chewed her lip. "I do miss our movie nights."

"And that's on me. I'm sorry."

"No, it's fine. Priya said you needed some space, so...we all just gave you that. Until you were ready." Laura couldn't have gone more rigid if she tried.

I rubbed my neck with both hands. I knew I'd distanced myself from everyone a bit since the breakup, but I didn't realise how much I had put everyone on edge.

"Can we do a restart, then? I still want to be your friend, and it doesn't matter at all to me that Asher is coming. He needs to help us get you drunk, anyway."

Laura snorted. "I don't believe you. Iknowit bothers you, but it means a lot that you'll put that aside for my birthday. Because you've always been more than a friend to me. Especially when you guys got together...you became my sister."

Well, that was one way to turn on the waterworks.

I crumpled up my face as tears welled up in my eyes, the entire garden becoming a blurry mess. I had spent so much time cultivating a badass image since I broke out, but there was one thing I still couldn't control. Crying came so easily that sometimes all it took was a picture of a bunny rabbit at the wrong time of the month.

"I'm not looking." Laura shut her eyes, but even through the tears I still spied her tightened lips as she suppressed a laugh. She knew how much I hated it when anyone saw me cry.

"Good. You're a sappy bitch, you know that?" I wiped the tears away with my sleeve and wrapped an arm around her shoulders. "And you're my sister, too. I don't want that to change because of what's happened."

"Me neither." Laura leaned her head on my shoulder, eyes still closed tight. "When you're done bawling, can I ask you a question?"

"Okay, you know what? I don't like you anymore."

"So you don't want to come to my birthday party?"

"Depends. Are you going to have it at some Edwardian afternoon tea place?" I asked. It wouldn't be the first time.

"Actually, I was hoping to go out on the town and get absolutely hammered. Fancy joining me?"

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