Page 65 of Wings of Ebony
“Yep. I don’t know.” I scoop up the cuff and the whispers start, but louder this time.
And clearer.
I strain to listen, but it sounds like a mix of stutters and hisses. I turn the metal in my hands.What are you trying to tell me?
“It doesn’t burn you?” Luke asks, rubbing a pink spot on his thumb.
“Nah.”
“It’s gotta be full of some kind of dark power.” Bri leans over it. “I don’t get it. Never seen anything like it. But you can sense it, you know?”
I sense something, that’s for sure. Is it darkness? Some malicious, angry magic trying to hurt me? Maybe I should tell Bri about the whispers, see what she thinks.
The cuff grows hotter.
On second thought, I won’t tell her. She’d freak out.
The cuff cools, like it heard me.
I slip it back inside my pocket and zip it up, ignoring the bulge in my side.
Bri’s mom hands me a mug of gri, which is like hot chocolate but sweeter. I don’t want it, but I was raised right so I smile and say thank you. She looks away.
I don’t like this.
Bri’s about to take a sip, but her mother claps. “A-ah! Seyeen.”
The Ghizoni prayer of thanks. I’m not praying thanks to the damn Chancellor. I look down and keep my mouth shut to be respectful of this lady letting me up in her house. Bri and Luke bow their heads.
She gestures for Bri to pray in English, I guess so I can participate.
“Thank you, good Chancellor, for your kind generosity,” Bri says. “Thank you for the magic with which you entrust us and the station you have given us. May we wear it with honor and use it with integrity. To the great and generous Chancellor, long life and good health. Seyeen.”
Long life? Good health?
I sip my drink.
They all mumble, “Seyeen.”
“So what did you tell Aasim?” I ask.AndLuke apparently.
“Everything. Well, everything that happened at the coffee shop. About the tattoo.”
“And?” I ask.
“And he just said he’d meet us here at sundown and hung up.”
Hmmm. Coming here to talk to him is thelastthing I wanted to do. But he’s a higher-up in Ghizon and probably my only shot at reactivating my onyx.
I don’t know what to make of him.
The necklace he left Moms kept her safe all those years, sure. But what kind of nigga just lay up with they girl, knock them up, and bounce? What am I supposed to say, thanks? Thanks for risking Moms’s life by getting involved in the first place? But, I mean, without the necklace would Moms’s life have ended even sooner? Ugh. My head hurts.
“I-is everything okay back at your home, Rue?” Luke wraps his arm back around Bri and she nestles in to him. “I-I don’t know much about what’s been going on with you,” he says. “Bri doesn’t tell me much.”
“Oh? I thought…,” I start.
“Uhh, no. You know me better than that. He happened to be here when you buzzed me, that’s all. He could tell something was wrong.” She shrugs him off playfully. “One, that isn’t my business to share. And two, Rue’s my girl. That’s like ride or death code one-oh-one.”
