Page 60 of Wings of Ebony
“Oh yeah?” He perks up, intrigued. “I liked History too. Found it… eye-opening.”
I just made that up. I haven’t been to my actual History class in months. But I do find the history books at Totsi’s Texts interesting. Ms. Totsi’s a real nice Zruki lady. She lives a few streets over from Bri actually.
When she wasn’t working at the mines, Ms. Totsi apparently developed her magic to be able to transcribe spoken words to text. Like she could just say words and they’d appear written on the page. The Chancellor was impressed, so he took her out the mines and put her in charge of all Ghizon’s historical texts.
But, I’m not telling Aasim all that. I pick at a scab on my skin until it hurts. He ain’t even come back when Moms needed him most. Mr. Magic’s Third in Command, but when yo baby momma have bullets flying at her head where was your magic then?Ugh.Is lunch over yet?
Six minutes left.
“Rue, I know you—”
Say we don’t have to do this. Say this is the last instance of this torture.
“I know this isn’t your favorite thing. But I wanna get to know you. You’re my…”
Don’t say it.
“… daughter.”
I dig my nails into the underside of the table.
“I don’t even know, like… what kind of music do you like? Trap? R&V?”
He knows about that? We usually just sit here talking about my classes or some stupid Ghizon thing. “It’s R&B and y-you’ve never asked that.…” Or anything about my life before here. Aboutme.
“I’m all ears. I want to know.”
He won’t know any of the artists even if I name them. I have some on my old phone I could let him hear if… “You really want to know about music?”
“I do. Your mom was into music. Figured you might be too.”
She was. Moms used to have tunes blasting every time she cleaned. Said it calmed her nerves. What was she like with him, I wonder?
I sit up. “I like a lot of types, but mainly I—”
“Aasim,” the General joins our tableside, his lips in a permanent scowl like they’re glued on his face that way. “The Chancellor wants to see you. Now.”
Aasim sighs. He’s gotta go,of course. It was stupid anyway.
“I really wanna hear this, Rue. But I need to—”
The scar under the General’s eye twitches. “You hear me, boy?”
Boy?Oh shit, nah! Aasim doesn’t even flinch. I push my tray aside. Not hungry anymore. “I was about to leave anyway.”
Aasim says something as I leave but I don’t hear it. Across the cafeteria, Bri’s tray is pretty much still full. She’s too busy keke-ing with Luke. (Or Lateef, I should say. He hates when I call him by his real name. He prefers the western variation he made up.)
“You gon’ eat that?” I ask, sticking my finger in her leez before she can respond. Luke snorts and we do a handshake thing I taught him. He’s slow on the uptake, but I don’t drag him for it.
“Uhh, not anymore,” Bri says, pretending to be annoyed.
“How’s the watch coming, by the way?”
“It’s coming. Haven’t had time to work on it in a bit.” She blushes and I know what that means.
I muss her hair. “Just don’t forget. One year is coming up soon.”
“I know, I know. I try to work at night, butsomeonetalks in their sleep.” She smirks.
