When Snow Falls

-Chapter 32-

One-thousand, three hundred, and seventy-five.

That's the number of lines on the cell wall.

Boredom has struck.

Time was impossible to keep track of in the jail.

Dungeon.

Whatever.

It kept inching away, seconds, hours, days, possibly weeks. Every breath took forever. Every second drowned  on and on and on into eternity.

And it didn't help when the man in the cell next to mine snored.

It didn't help at all.

Even Rosinka was at a loss.

And when the tag-along doesn't know what to do… then it’s really bad.

I'd practiced every spell I knew I could without getting into trouble. I even tried the one that was supposed to destroy the cell bars. The only movement I received was a small quake and a screech that caused the watching murae-guard to stand in warning.

You know, you can try to get the cavalier from Sleeping Beauty while he slumbers.

Laughing would only encourage her, so I tried to stay as quiet as I could. No, I'm not going to do that.

Why not?

I glanced to the side. Arioch’s beard fluttered up and down with each breath he took. With his arms crossed over his chest, he nearly could have passed for dead.

Because I've already lied to him once.

Rosinka hushed after that. As much as she aggravated me, and as much as I disliked her, especially since she was in my head, we were both occasionally the same. With what I'd been told, she was just me, but evil.

She still held some of the same values.

I closed my eyes and leaned against the wall. The man I spoke to after Rosi took over and tried to kill Will and Merlin, the Brennen guy--his story kept circling around my head for some reason.

I don't know why. My goal was to find a cure for miralis, not hear an autobiography again.

Stupid bored mind.

My fists clenched--not on my terms. Don’t insult me.

Don’t take control of my body.

A smirk formed on my lips. Touché.

I sighed. Up until then, each day was the same. I’d wake up, eat, have a lesson from Arioch, eat, see William, get a glare from King, eat, and sleep.

Except that day. William had yet to come get me, and it had passed to nighttime while I waited.

Worry gnawed at my stomach whenever I thought of my friend. He had been so scheduled each day, for him to miss meant something was--

Something was wrong.

Immediately, I focused my thoughts on something else--anything else. Just the idea of Will…

I couldn’t finish the thought.

A mangled laugh managed to force its way from my throat. A month ago, my father would have gotten onto me about thinking of a boy so much.

It was easy, then. I had my brother. Mother. Father. Even though I claimed to have no friends, I had them. I wanted to pretend to be a girl from the books I read so I could escape what I called “boredom of everyday life.”