“I don’t know what you mean,” she said, her voice muffled by the cookie.
“I mean it’s painfully obvious that Fen’s infatuated with you.”
She stared. He wasn’t. “He’s just protective by nature.”
“Ofyou.”
Archie didn’t understand. He couldn’t possibly, not unless she explained the way she and Fen seemed connected, drawn together by the strings of fate. They weren’t lovers, they were… friends. Colleagues. Something else even Ru had yet to fully comprehend. Something she couldn’t explain without sounding mad.
“Can we talk about something else?” she asked, brushing crumbs from her lap.
“It’s getting late,” Archie said, even though it was only just past eight. He stood then, making a show of gathering the tea.
Ru heard the unspoken words quite clearly: he wanted to be alone. “Thanks for the tea, Arch,” she said. He gave a little nod, a forced smile, and went back to tidying up.
Heart in her throat, full of too many emotions to sort out and name, Ru left Archie’s room and continued on her way to the laboratory wing.
* * *
The laboratory wingwas quiet in the evening, most academics preferring to move their studies to libraries or the dormitory wing as darkness fell, seeking comfort and the warmth of a hearth. Even at the height of summer, the Tower was so far north, nestled at the foot of the mountains, that nights were chilly.
Ru could hear the sounds of voices drifting into the hall from open doors as she passed, but they were few and far between. When she pulled open the heavy wooden door of the archaeology lab, its brass handle cool beneath her fingers, she was relieved to find it empty.
The lab had two full walls of gothic-style windows that, during the day, let in copious amounts of natural light. The room was large and airy, its ceilings vaulted. A dozen large wooden tables stood equidistant from each other, each outfitted with a full array of tools.
At the far end of the room was a smaller door, with a wooden sign hanging from a brass hook:Artifact Storage. If Ru’s black stone hadn’t been dangerous, it would have lived there. Crossing the room, her skirts sighing about her legs as she went, she pulled open the door.
It swung open with ease, its hinges regularly greased, the wooden sign bumping softly against it as Ru wedged it open with a nearby doorstop. The smell of ancient earth, of stone and time, filled Ru’s lungs as she inhaled deeply. This room was her favorite in the Tower, and she mentally chided herself for waiting so long to return after her weeks away. Shelves upon shelves of artifacts greeted her, steeped in the memories of those who had come long before.
Sighing, releasing the pent-up tension from tea with Archie, Ru walked slowly through the rows of shelves until she came to her section. There were small plaques affixed to the shelves, indicating whose discoveries were housed where. Some artifacts were exposed to the air, while others were so delicate they had to be kept in small boxes, or under glass domes.
Ru’s vases were all there, from shards of pottery to near-complete vessels. Her throat tightened as her eyes fell on a large, squat vase with a wide mouth — the vase from Dig Site 33, the last one she had found before everything changed.
Eyes burning with unshed tears, she ran a finger along its curved edge, rough to touch but solid, a thing so easily quantified and understood. So unlike the artifact, the vase had no connection to Ru, pressed no subtle touch to the edge of her consciousness. It simply existed.
Ru had come here for solace, a respite from the chatter of an unsettled mind. But no matter where she went, the artifact followed. And there was no comforting warmth emanating from the thread between them now, no radiating calm. Simply a low steady thrum, ever-present.
How many vases were in this storage room? How many relics of lives long past? If she calculated the number of shelves…
But Ru’s mind skittered at the thought, unfocused. She squeezed her eyes shut for a moment, clenching her fists.
How many shelves in the room… if each shelf housed roughly a dozen items and the volume of…
Again, she found herself unable to think clearly, to follow the solid framework of numbers and space and calculation to a logical end. Her anchor, that constant mental escape — she couldn’t reach it. She was lost and spinning, and even the artifact seemed distant when she needed something here and now, something to steady her.
Spitting a curse, Ru turned away from her vases. She hurried back into the lab, the room still empty, her footsteps echoing on the stone floor. When she was out in the corridor, she closed the door and leaned back against it, exhaling slowly.
She had never felt so lost, so unlike herself. What she’d said to Archie now hung all the heavier over her — she felt like a different Ru, reborn, as if the events at the Shattered City had been a metamorphosis. Her world had tilted ever so slightly on its axis, shifting her center of gravity. Who could she go to, now? Who understood?
Straightening then, she set her shoulders, smoothed her skirts, and set off along the corridor toward the guest wing.
CHAPTER21
Fen’s room was at the end of the hall, near a tall window that looked out onto one of the Tower’s surrounding courtyards. Ru had never been to his room, had only been told where it was should she need to reach him.
Standing before the closed door now, palms growing sweaty with anticipation and nerves, she hesitated. What would he think of her coming to his room at night for no clear reason? Instinct had brought her here, the need to be near someone who understood, even in the smallest of ways, what she’d been through with the artifact. And maybe, something in Archie’s words had rung true. Maybe he’d seen the way Fen was able to steady Ru when nothing else could and had misinterpreted it as infatuation.
She knocked, a soft rap of the knuckle.