Page 46 of Flame and Sparrow

I’d heard that tone before. What she really meant wastoo detailedto have been created by a normal mind.

I shrugged. “I have to keep busy somehow.” My words came out sounding like an apology, though an unnecessary one; her expression was different from her usual cold, quietly judgmental stare. It was more…curious.

Her leathery fingers traced the drawing over and over. Her lips parted with thought. The quiet between us stretched uncomfortably until I decided that I should press her for information while she was distracted, her guard lower than usual.

“How long have I been in this place?” I asked.

She looked to the ceiling, calculating, and said, “Twenty-three days in mortal time, give or take.”

Twenty-three days?

It had passed in a few blinks.

She lowered her gaze to me. “Are you not comfortable here?”

“I expected I’d see more of the God of Fire by this point,” I admitted.

She folded my drawing into a small square, and I fought the urge to reach out and snatch it from her before she could pocket it. Was she planning to keep it? Would that god she served hear about this, too? Did she suspect I was plotting something?

“I did pass on your message to him from the other day,” she said, casually.

My cheeks warmed, remembering our argument about the oven.

“And he asked me to inform you that his godly ass comes and goes as it pleases.”

Bastard.

“I’ll keep that in mind,” I said with as much politeness as I could muster.

My polite tone didn’t fool her. “You could do with some more patience.”

Twenty-three days’ worth of waiting felt plenty patient to me—though I guess to an immortal god and their servants, time had a different meaning.

“The sun above this house never dims, yet it feels like I’m entirely in the dark.” I muttered the words more to myself than Rieta.

She didn’t answer me right away, slipping my drawing into an inner pocket of her cloak before turning to the desk against the back wall. I feared she was going to start digging through its drawers in search of more of my maps and diagrams, asking more questions about why I was here and what I was after.

She didn’t, thankfully; she only grabbed a basket of supplies she’d brought, taking things from it and laying them across the desk’s top.

I thought she was prepared to drop our conversation—that maybe she hadn’t even heard my last words—until she quietly said, “Sometimes it’s safer in the dark.”

“I didn’t come here to be kept safe. Or to bekeptanywhere, for that matter. I am not a pet that needs to be fenced in.”

She cut her eyes toward me and stared for a long, hard moment. “Did you ever consider that maybe we’re not fencing you in, but rather fencing other thingsout?”

A shiver traveled down my spine.

I wasn’t sure how to respond.

“Your mortal realm is not the only one that experiences strife, you know. You arrived here at a tumultuous time, and if it were up tome, I would have left you at home, deals be damned.”

Strife?

The chills continued racing along my spine, but now they were partially excited ones. If there was discord in this realm, it meant more potential weaknesses to exploit. My mind raced with the possibilities.

I averted my eyes, afraid she might see the curiosity dancing in them.

“Patience,” she reiterated, her wary tone dulling my enthusiasm a bit, “and hold your fire. You’ll need it soon enough.”

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