douse the light
“Wait, Kit.”
He stops.
“Thank you.” It’s clumsy and doesn’t cover it. “And I know you weren’t going to back out, earlier, when I said… I was just – scared.”
Don’t bark, you little makkie. The memory of Venor’s voice fills me with thick-blooded dread.
“You told me what to do, and I did it,” he says. “That’s how it works, right? After all, you’re a Dezil, of sorts.” He cocks his head and smiles strangely.
Mora Dezil. That’s my name. Dezil’s a common enough Crozoni name now, but I suppose some of the branches of the Dezil family used to be well-to-do, back in the day.
“Kit, you know it’s not like that – I don’t see myself as … above you.” Though my parents did, before the Cull.
He sighs. “Ruzi does though, doesn’t he? Man’d rather choke than give me the time of day.”
And Kit just saved his son’s life.
“Ruzi’s not friendly with anyone. He doesn’t like people.” Neither do I, to be honest. I blow a curl of hair out of my eyes.
The sinews flicker in Kit’s neck, then he reaches past me to grab the lantern from the desk. He holds it close to my cheek, pinched between thumb and forefinger, and splays out his other fingers to brush some hair from my forehead. “What did you do to your face?”
“What do you mean?” I swallow.
Kit’s so close I can see the old scar on his cheek, behind his attempt at a beard. His long fingers trail gently over my temple. His anger seems forgotten. “A bump?”
“Oh. It’s nothing. I banged it on Clomper’s stall.”
His eyes reflect lantern light into mine until I look away.
He turns back to the heavy wooden door, Zako’s boots still swinging from his hand.
“Sleep,” he says over his shoulder, pulling the door shut behind him, leaving me alone.
I look around Kit’s room. I feel hopelessly out of place here, though part of me wants to belong as much as his clothes or his shoes, his papers with their Xan jottings I don’t understand. To be as welcome and ordinary and commonplace as the lantern or the pillow, unremarkable as the air. Everything here is Kit’s – but for the small, hide-wrapped parcel of my old drawings, paper and pencils that Mister Heane gave me when he brought me the news about Zako. The same parcel I carried directly to Kit with the news.
There are dozens of pieces of orange peel on top of it. Only hours ago, Kit and I sat there, eating oranges and planning Zako’s rescue. Oranges – the madness of it. Like the madness of the whole night.
“How’d you get these?” I’d asked.
“Mister S bought them. They’re from Skøland, I think. Go on. Eat it.”
“Did you steal them from Missus S?”
“No.”
We plotted our mission.
It’s hours later but the orange scent lingers. I sweep the peels into the bin and douse the light.