Folding the Sky

-4-

He was so quiet.

To be fair, Zuri thankfully didn't have much experience with assassins, and yet she still had expected something about him to terrify her, for his words to bite and sting and his smile to gleam like the edge of a bloodstained knife. That, she had thought, was what an assassin looked like.

Aldric Finck was no such thing. He sat across from Zuri and Jem, entirely still, the line of his mouth neutral. His hair, which Zuri had thought at first was black, but turned out to be a deep, midnight blue when he stepped into the light, hung in lank strands past his shoulders. His chest was wide but his face was sunken, deep-set eyes vacant, like his mind was elsewhere.

He didn't look so much like an assassin as he did a vagrant, but Zuri wasn't so foolish as to underestimate him.

Jem slid her gaze towards Zuri, an expectant eyebrow risen. They had left the Okiro residence earlier without that much of a plan, and only then was Zuri beginning to realize that maybe that wasn't the wisest decision. It was pure luck, after all, that the Queen's note had been enough for the wardens to wave them through security.

Zuri cast a careful glance up at the door, checking to make sure the prison guard's silhouette was still visible in the window. Jem was still looking at her like she was supposed to say something. Zuri cleared her throat, but didn't speak.

Jem scowled, but when she looked back to Aldric, her face was placid. "You probably have no idea who we are."

The assassin said nothing, just tilted his head, as if he was studying them.

Jem shuddered. "But we know who you are."

"A lot of people do," Aldric said, the first time he'd spoken in the five minutes since the warden had dragged him inside. His voice was deep, unsteady, half a croak. "Especially now."

"Maybe I should rephrase," Zuri said, interlacing her fingers, then unlacing them again when the gesture made her feel too much like some super villain. "We know what you are."

Aldric's expression gave: a slight, stunned jerk of his bluish black brow. "I don't know what you're talking about."

Jem laughed. "Yes you do."

"No," Aldric snapped. "I do not."

Zuri exhaled, moving her bangs aside and leaning forward, so that the shiny flesh of the scar at her temple was obvious. "You're not in any danger," she said, watching as Aldric's jaw tensed. "I promise. We're...we're like you. Celest—"

"Don't," Aldric interrupted, and shook his head. "You people are crazy. Actually crazy! Who are you, and what the hell do you want, anyway?"

Jem rolled her eyes. "Your acting skills are so fascinating," she said, her voice flat. "Really. I'm so impressed."

But Zuri was too focused on the man in front of her to join in Jem's sarcasm. She looked into Aldric's vacant eyes, the crystalline color of the surface of a frozen lake, and sighed. She had not wanted to do it this way, but she had no choice.

Zuri whipped out her hand. Aldric jerked back, alarmed, but she was faster. She caught his fingers in hers and had but a second to gasp at their coldness before the visions swallowed her whole.

Zuri's hand was trembling when she let him go. No one spoke, not a word, until Zuri exhaled and said, "You got caught on purpose?"

Aldric's eyes flashed. "How did you—"

"To get away from your parents," Zuri went on. "So they wouldn't make you kill anymore."

Jem let out a startled breath, glancing frantically between Zuri and Aldric.