Folding the Sky

-44-

Sorin's head was spinning, and there was nothing he hated more.

Reality wriggled itself free of his grasp. He now drifted in some unknown space, unsure how to function, or what to say. Energy was a constant low susurration within his soul, bubbling up and threatening to cook him from the inside out.

He just wanted—no, he didn't even know that, did he?

A voice interrupted his introspection. "Did you mean that?"

Sorin glanced up, brushing the remnants of Aldric's ice from his cheek. It was Zuri who'd spoken. She was closer to him now, but not close, as if she was afraid to come within a foot of him. He hated it—her hesitance, how it stung him—but it was better this way.

Sorin asked, slowly, wary of the others watching them, "Mean...did I mean what?"

"I was listening for a bit before I opened the door," Zuri said, and regret plucked at his heart, a sharp pinch he wished he could ignore. He should have sensed her there—would have, probably, if he hadn't been so preoccupied with Aldric. "You said...that it was a mistake. Was it really?"

Sorin closed his eyes.

Liesel, are you watching? Are you watching me fail you; are you shaking your head?

If he were different, if he were better, he would have reached out for Zuri. He would've taken her hand and told her honestly: No. And even if it was a mistake it was the very best one I could have made, and I want to try anyway.

Instead, he turned his back on her. "Yes," he said. "It was, and that's exactly why I told you to forget about it. There are...other things we should be focusing on right now."

He heard her take in a sharp exhale. "Sorin—"

"I'll be upstairs," he interrupted, and without another word to her, he vanished up the rickety staircase.

"Well," Jem announced with a theatrical sigh once Sorin's footsteps had faded away. "That was quite the show."

Kalindi elbowed her in the side. "Way to read the room, Jem."

Jem shrugged, unperturbed. "You have to admit it was a little entertaining from where we're sitting."

"Okay, that's enough out of you," Chike said with a roll of his eyes. He turned, and even before he said her name Zuri could feel his eyes on her, studying her, waiting for her to crumble. "Zuri? Are you...are you okay?"

No. Of course she wasn't. Without even meaning to, she'd broken Aldric's heart, like a blooming flower crushed underneath her heavy feet. She had the awful feeling that she'd done something irreversible, that Aldric would never again look at her the same way. She had ruined them and now they were doomed to spend their remaining time in perpetual and pensive silence: always wanting to say something, never really saying it.

She could've withstood it, maybe, if only Sorin would touch her again, if he'd tell her it was all okay. Yet he'd built an insurmountable gap between them, scowling, laughing at her as she tried to traverse the precarious rope bridge stretched across it. She stood, suspended, at the bridge's center now. Too tired to go on; too far to turn back.

None of these were things she could say, however. She smiled, tossing her hair back. "Fine," she said, rolling her shoulders down from her ears. "Things like this tend to work themselves out, and anyway, Sorin's right. There's other things we need to be worrying about."

Chike's face dipped swiftly into a dubious frown, but before he could ask, Kalindi had already started talking. "That's a good point," she said, dusting the front of her shorts as she rose to her feet. Only Zuri had yet to get a chance to change out of her ruined ballgown. "In light of my mother's new goal, or our new knowledge of it, at least, the situation's changed."