Folding the Sky

-26-

Zuri didn't consider herself to be a worrier. Just from watching her father, she'd seen well enough what worry could do to a person, how it could devour them from the inside out, turn their dreams into nightmares. That being said, she couldn't ignore the anxious pit in her stomach as she watched the sun go down from within the warehouse, Sinje slowly succumbing to the blue-black inkiness of night.

    When the sun rose again, they would be at the paper mill, finally meeting Schmitt face to face. She should've been giddy, excited to accomplish the task they'd come so far to achieve. Yet all she felt was dread—dread, and the beginnings of exhaustion she knew she could only stave off for so long.

    They'd discussed their plans in detail on the journey back from the bakery, including how they would approach and how they would leave again. Kalindi had raised every possible question and scenario, and Zuri and the others had worked through them ceaselessly until their heads hurt. Jem was already sleeping it all off, though how she'd managed to fall asleep atop the heavily-splintered wooden pallets currently serving as their mattresses, Zuri didn't know.

    Kalindi and Chike sat beside Jem, discussing something in low, hushed voices, Schmitt's letter between them. They'd been doing so for the past hour, it felt like, but there was a small knit between Kalindi's brows and a calculated anxiousness to Chike's expression that scared Zuri off from breaking their focus.

    So she sat alone in the growing dark, perched on the windowsill, one leg bent close, the other stretched in front of her. She touched a hand to the grimy glass, cracked in one corner. It was lukewarm, like a tepid bath.

    A face appeared on the other side of the glass then, making Zuri jump before she realized the face was Aldric's. He was grinning at her, holding up a paper bag.

    A strange sense of déjà vu rolled over Zuri as she leaned forward, shoving the window open. It gave with far too much ease. She asked immediately, "What is your obsession with windows?"

    "They make for better entrances, don't you think?" Aldric answered, clambering inside. At the noise, Kalindi looked up, met Zuri's and Aldric's gazes for a moment, before exhaling and turning away again.

    Aldric's eyes returned to Zuri; he settled himself across from her. "Hope you're hungry."

    "I wouldn't mind eating. Why?"

    "Get this. There's a restaurant on this side of the bridge that serves traditional Meathean cuisine," he said, his eyes glittering with an excitement Zuri had never seen in them before. The look on his face reminded her inexplicably of a puppy. "We passed by it when we were walking earlier, but Kalindi was rattling on—"

    Kalindi looked up again, her brows like two dark blades.

    "Very helpfully going over the plans," Aldric amended, waiting until Kalindi huffed and looked away before adding, "so I didn't have time to stop. But I decided to run back there."

    Zuri had to admit that the cultural details of Aldric's birthplace were a bit lost on her. After all, before the Queen's request, she'd never once stepped foot outside of Naino. The little she knew about the eternally cold land of Meathe came from articles she'd read in the paper, or the occasional traveler she rode beside on the trolley. The Winter State, the Land of Knowledge—it had a lot of nicknames, but she could tell by the utter solace in Aldric's expression that, to him, it was just home.

    "Here," he said, reaching into the bag, and pulling out what looked to be a small, circular loaf of sourdough bread, about the size of Zuri's palm. He handed it to her, and she took it, however warily. It wasn't quite hot enough to burn her, but it was certainly close.