Page 9 of Flame and Sparrow

I was noticing trends in the various temples we’d visited and vandalized over the past months. Layouts that repeated themselves, rooms of predictable function, shape, and size—knowledge that could prove helpful. I was determined to recreate what I’d seen and simplify it, categorize it into useful notes that my fellow conspirators and I could make use of.

And, if nothing else, it gave me something to occupy myself with, taking my mind off Cillian.

Andrel had turned his attention back toward the temple, watching and waiting for the signal.

Cillian had a special whistle—one that emitted a sound no human would be able to hear—which he would use to let us know when he had successfully finished his task. All three of us had the same sort of instrument, and we had a simple system with them: One high-pitched note meant we needed help. Two meant to stay close, but not approach. Three meant it was time to leave.

Three short bursts of a whistle, and then this night would be over with.

I felt desperate for that sound, suddenly.

But the only sound for several minutes was the wind, along with the occasional rustle of the paper braced across my leg and the scratch of the graphite stick against it.

I tried to stay calmly focused on the paper.

I was not an artist by any means—my creations would never decorate the walls of temples or gardens like the ones at my back—but I was thorough. Exact. I liked…lines.Exact lines, orderly layouts, predictable things. Plans. Patterns. Patterns were everywhere if you bothered to look for them.

I sensed Andrel moving near once more, his head tilting toward my drawing for a better look. “I’m not convincedthatisn’t some kind of magic,” he commented after a moment. “What normal being can recreate a place so precisely after merely walking through it? You’ve got a strange mind, Kare.”

I glanced up, arching a brow. “Is that supposed to be a compliment?”

“Of course it is.” He shrugged and flashed a smile, easy and genuine. My stomach flipped. My heart might have skipped a few times, too—a fluttering he’d undoubtedly heard. He’d heard it before, too; by this point he had to be aware of the effect that smile had on me.

Nowreallywasn’t the time to be distracted by such things, however.

I put my diagramming materials away and got to my feet. My skin flushed hot as restlessness overcame me, and I wrapped my arms around myself and walked the length of the yard and back, squeezing my stomach as if I could stop all the flipping and fluttering if I just pressed tightly enough.

The feeling mercifully passed within a few moments, as it always did, like a bird with clipped wings that never truly took flight.

I forced my hands down to my sides, trying to appear perfectly composed. “I’m going to find a better vantage point,” I said, “just in case something’s happened and Cillian can’t use our first choice of signals.”

“Be careful.”

I nodded and made my way to the yard’s rusted iron gate, where I paused. My fingers—now clawless—tapped impatiently against the warped and peeling bars of the gate as I watched the distant temple for signs of any kind. I was so determined to stay still, watching and listening closely, that I kept holding my breath without realizing I was doing it, causing my vision to blur and a numb tingling to spread into my hands and feet.

Why was he taking so long?

He should be done by now.

No signal. No whistle, no lights, no smoke from any igniting bombs…

Unease crawling up my spine, I watched the road in both directions for a minute before cautiously crossing it and slipping once more into the temple’s manicured gardens. I moved quickly and silently through the shadows, my hand resting on the knife at my belt, my skin prickling at every strange sound or scent.

I heard footsteps behind me. A female voice humming a quiet song. A clinking and rattling of what might have been jewelry—

“Are you here to pay your respects?”

I spun around and found myself face-to-face with a young woman. No—a girl. Her lightly-freckled skin was smooth, her blue eyes bright with curiosity and unclouded in the way that only eyes that hadn’t seen much of the world and its horrors could be; she couldn’t have been much older than fourteen.

Fourteen years old and already in this temple at this late hour of the night, a slave to whatever rituals and fidelities her fellow humans insisted on.

I didn’t withdraw my knife, but I kept my hand near it just in case. Young fanatics could still be dangerous ones, in my experience.

“Well?” she prompted, placing a concerned hand on my arm. “Are you?”

“Not exactly,” I replied, jerking away and trying to step past her.

She blocked my path. “Have you lost something, then?”

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