Folding the Sky

-3-

Zuri was almost positive she was in the wrong place.

The house before her wasn't really a house, but an estate, a wondrous spectacle of polished white marble that gleamed beneath the hot sun like the surface of a pearl.

She stood right at the curve of the circular drive, an ornate stone courtyard behind her, two massive oak doors in front of her. The babble of central Naino was stifled here. She could hear only the symphonic chatter of birds and the rustle of wind in the palms.

Zuri glimpsed the address Jem had given her, scribbled down on a handkerchief. She turned around, glanced back down the street. Sure enough, the street name matched.

When Zuri whirled, Jem was standing on the front stoop.

"Shit!" Zuri exclaimed, then clapped a hand over her mouth. To her relief, Jem just seemed amused. "When did you get there?"

"Outside? Just a few seconds," Jem said, fussing at the sleeves of her shirt. She wasn't in a dress, but a loose, off-white blouse tucked in to a pair of wide-legged pants, her hair swept back from her shoulders in a long, dark braid. It wasn't particularly unusual for a woman to wear pants there in Naino—in the late summer, some women even donned long linen shorts—but still, a flutter of respect for Jem arose in Zuri's chest. It wasn't something Zuri herself had ever been bold enough to try.

"But I was watching you from my bedroom window for quite a while," Jem went on.

"What?" Zuri's face went red. "Why?"

"You looked lost. Even when you turned the corner down there, at the end of the street, you looked like you wanted to turn around. It was funny."

"At the end of the—" Zuri stopped, whirling. The corner which Jem mentioned, where the main street narrowed to a private drive, was at least half a mile back the other way. Not to mention, from an upstairs window, the view would have been at least partially obscured by the treetops.

When Zuri met Jem's eyes again, the girl was grinning. "How?" Zuri asked her. "How did you see me when I was all the way over there?"

Jem tilted her chin down, a quick glint of sunlight glancing off her wire-rims. "Really," she said. "You haven't figured that out already, mind-bender?"

The Okiro's residence was no less magnificent within than it was without. Both of Jem's parents were out, so the girls had the place to themselves.

Zuri and Jem sat in the main parlor: a wide, clean stretch of space set with glass tables and ornately upholstered high-back chairs. Sunlight poured in through a massive window beside them, glinting off the floors—they, too, were pale marble—and turning the porcelain teacups before them to shimmering, gold-rimmed masterpieces.

Zuri lifted hers with the utmost care, trying not to marvel too much at the delicacy of it all. She had not known before today that it was possible for a cup to be entirely stainless and unblemished, not a single chip in sight.

"My mother has her own stupid name for it," Jem was saying. Her own teacup sat untouched in front of her, her arms folded across her chest instead. "Advanced sight, she calls it, but to me that sounds so pretentious."

Zuri had never really given any thought to what her ability, or any others', for that matter, should be called. She didn't think it mattered. "What would you call it, then?"

Jem sputtered, fell silent for a moment, then groaned. "Oh, I don't know. Nothing! I'd rather not mention it at all."

"Sounds to me like you're not super fond of your ability," Zuri said. "Whatever it's called."