“Want to hang out after I’m done? We could grab dinner in the cafeteria, make some more stuff? I almost have Growly’s t-shirt ready.”
She shifted her weight, her petite wings flaring slightly. “Um, I’m supposed to go hang out at The Merge tonight.”
I perked up. “Is that like a club? I don’t have anything to wear—” I broke off when I saw Sunny’s expression.
“Feather, I don’t know how to tell you this. But you’re not allowed to go to The Merge.”
“Oh.” I almost asked if I was allowed to go anywhere, but I decided for once that not knowing the answer to a question might hurt less. Ignorance was bliss, right? “Well then, bye.”
“I’ll be back to escort you to your room when you’re done,” she said with an apologetic smile. “Don’t go anywhere without me, okay? For real.”
Oof. Yeah, ignorance would have been bliss. I was definitely more of a prisoner than a citizen of Sanctuary.
Mikhail met me at the door, nodding to Sunny. “I will call for you when she’s done.”
I followed him inside, feeling lower by the minute. It was all I could do to make myself climb up on the torture table again, and when Mikhail set the knife down next to me, I couldn’t help sniffling a little.
“I wish I could take this on for you, Feather,” he said, surprising me. He hadn’t said anything nice to me before, even if his eyes had been filled with pity for me the day before. And he’d patted my head for a while when I’d cried.
“I wish you could, too,” I joked, inspecting the smut layer covering my left arm. “You know they have a saying on Earth: beauty is pain. After all this, I’d better be ridiculously gorgeous underneath.”
Mikhail didn’t answer, and I looked up at his craggy features. His eyes had gone wide with… disbelief. Horror?
“What is on you?” he demanded, reaching out to grab my shoulder, and only remembering at the last minute not to touch me. He pointed at a patch of pink glitter on my upper arm.
I beamed up at him. “I was making stuff with the craft supplies you sent for me. Thanks for those, by the way. It’s actually the nicest present I’ve ever been given.”
He had been winding up to lecture, I was almost certain of it, but my gratitude had shocked him. “Well, if that’s glitter, then you must know, it’s not an acceptable material—”
“Oh, don’t make me stop using it! I’m in the middle of a project!” I chewed at my lower lip. “I mean, I’ll stop if I have to… It’s just, have you ever gotten halfway done with something, and the urge to finish the job sort of takes over? And if you can’t, it’s maddening. Like an itch you can’t scratch, until it’s complete.”
He blinked. “Yes. I know that feeling very well. I never knew lower Protectors felt so strongly about creating. None of the others have asked for materials to make things in… well, centuries.”
“Huh. What do they do?”
“Plan their missions, meditate, and converse, I believe. They used to do some sort of macramé. I don’t mingle with them, so I could be mistaken.”
“Weird.” I set the blade to the place between my fingers. Maybe if I talked while I worked, it wouldn’t be so bad. “I would think… they would all… want to be in here.” I pulled the sliver of smut away, and pretended it didn’t feel like carving into my bone. “Creating is one of the few things that anyone can do. Even with sticks, clay, water, and paper—I heard of a guy who painted with his own blood when he was imprisoned.” I winked one teary eye up at him. “Thanks for not making me have to resort to that.” I carved another sliver away, panting.
His soft voice interrupted my pain. “What are you making with your supplies?”
I grinned through the agony. “A present for you.”
The next cuts almost didn’t hurt, the memory of his shock, curiosity, and a touch of almost bashful delight giving me the energy to clean off three fingers before I passed out.
He woke me gently. “You must rest. Sunny is here. Return to your room, little one.” I heard him saying something quietly to Sunny as I dragged my exhausted near-corpse out of the Maker Hall.
When we reached my room and I collapsed on my bed, I asked the question that had occurred to me when she’d left me earlier that day. The one that was starting to feel like another blade on my heart.
“Is this a job?”
“Um, what do you mean?” Sunny’s chirp sounded off, a sour note in her tone again.
“Taking care of me. It’s a job, right? Like, you get paid somehow.” Danger pay, for being around my spiritual contamination. I cracked one eye open.
She bustled over to the small table by the bed, setting out a pile of golden grapes and more cheese cubes. Her hair was done in gorgeous braids, her smut far less noticeable somehow. She had some sort of golden makeup on her cheeks and lips, a toga with white and gold flares at the hem and cap sleeves, and looked a lot like a futuristic princess.
“Well, yes. In a way,” she said at last. “I’m your official companion until you’re acclimated. All Novices have one.”
