Promise the Sky

Chapter 37

Chapter 37

Melissa

 

 

 

I pick at my fingernails, sit back in the muted sunlight of the courtyard, and wonder when Ben will decide to show up. He never set a time, so I have no need to worry. He just said he would see me tomorrow, and never set a time. It doesn't matter what the housekeeper says.

"He's not coming, love, stop pining on him. You make the place look messy, sitting there on your own."

I bite back my childish retort as she walks through again, and try to hold myself with some decorum. Back home, no one would accuse Melissa VanCoupé of pining.

But isn't that exactly what I'm doing?

The housekeeper treats me to a final glare when she realises I have no desire to rise to her bait and disappears through one of the courtyard's many side doors.

I sit there a little longer and wonder if I should have asked her what makes her so certain. But then, she's just a bitter old woman and she revels in the spread of unhappiness.

Casting my eyes towards the entrance one final time, I stand, brush myself down, and get ready to leave. When he finally turns up, late and all full of his puppy guilt, he will not find me patient. He will not find me at all.

In a flurry of decisive movement, I leave, striding fluidly out into the street. I have my own things to do here, my own tasks to fulfil.

I sigh, cursing Martha's cripple for the hundredth time this journey, and start to think about where best to begin locating the girl.

The best places will be the darker ones. Every city has its shadowed side and despite my distaste, the Mirror City's underworld is where I will find my shunned little stray. She will have learnt by now that society has no use for her, that despite its beauty, the Mirror City has no mythical tolerance that the rest of the world seems to lack.

But then, this is the city that housed the great Bron and still holds the bones of his mighty Viper.

No; I shake the thoughts away. Martha's feeble little Kiara hasn't the killer instinct at all and she will not find any acceptance here; she is filled with almost as much self-loathing as unjustified guilt.

Just like Ben, really.

More thoughts to be dashed. I would rather not get onto a negative track. Like the fact that Ben has no reason to stay beyond our blossoming friendship. He has taken all he might ever need from me. If I were him, and if I were inclined to run, I would be long gone by now.

But the kind of boy that rescues an entire ship, sealing a deal with a creature from the devil's own horde, and calling upon the magic that distresses him so, is not the kind of boy to flake on his perceived debts. He saved my life.

And I made it known that he owed me nothing.

Perhaps he has gone to sell his magic without my arrogant meddling.

"Melissa!" I snap, cursing myself, and try to keep a proud head as I walk. The thought of him mutilating himself while I wander aimlessly through these broad streets is a little too much.

Instead I concentrate on the soothing scent of hot sunlight on bared stone and run a hopeful hand up my arm. Perhaps this exotic sun might colour me an intoxicating shade of brown, like the Mirror City delegates I often find myself serving back home. I would like that; to return with some delectable token of this strange new world.