Nightfire | The Whispering Wall #1

Sixty: A Truth

But she wanted Grace to decide for herself, and it felt good to allow her to tug her back along the corridor, hand feverish-warm against Nova's cold fingers. If the girl was angry that Nova hadn't managed to get in touch with her before now, it didn't show. She wouldn't even admit to herself how relieved she was.

"Won't somebody see us?" Nova murmured, glancing around as Grace fumbled to unlock her door. Nova was glad she hadn't tried any of the other doors now. She didn't have anything to pick the locks with.

"There are only two of us in this one," Grace muttered. The lock clicked into place and she swung the door wide. A waft of warm air greeted them. "And Hetty's gone to have her baby at home. Went into labour yesterday. Scariest damn thing I've ever seen, and I've been dragged through a tunnel by a demon."

Nova snorted. "Not rushing to have children, then?"

Grace smirked. "No. Too much screaming." She shut the door and locked it behind them. "There. No one should bother us now."

There were six beds in the room, three sets of double bunks, but only one wasn't neatly made up. Grace had bagged the bed closest to the small hearth. Clothes were heaped on the footboard, and several pieces of abandoned sewing were strewn over the bedside table. Grace caught her looking at them.

"Sewing bores the daylights out of me," she muttered, "There's just nothing else to do."

Nova, who had spent a miserable few days chained to walls on her own for hours at a time, said nothing. Her only regular company had been Jeorge, and she'd rather have spent more time in her cage than been subjected to him. She drifted closer to the fire, shedding the blanket on Grace's bed, and crouched at the hearth, savouring the warm stone against her tingling feet and the heat on her face. It wasn't nearly as big as the hearth in the kitchens, but it was good enough. Her shuddering slowed. The danger she was putting them both in was a distant concern while she was so comfortable, and the truth she'd come to tell no longer felt so urgent. A private room, for the first time in years. She looked round at a noise behind her and saw Grace pouring out two tumblers of water from a decanter on a nearby table. She was in a nightdress, Nova realised, face flushing. She hadn't noticed in her distraction with not getting caught, but the thin shift really didn't seem like very much at all.

Grace turned with a smile and handed her a drink before settling cross-legged on the hearth beside her. In the light, the bruise-like circles under her eyes became starkly apparent.

"Not sleeping much?" Nova asked, trying to sound offhand. She should have started with what she came to say, but Grace always caused her to make poor choices. There was something about her.

"Not at all, more like." Grace rubbed her eyes with the heels of her palms and sighed. "I saw Jordan the other day."

"Oh?" Nova had too, but she said nothing.

"He's so different," she mumbled. "I don't think he even realises." Nova frowned into the fire as Grace continued. "He's like...distant. Like he's hiding something from me. I can always tell when he's lying, but this is different. He's avoiding something."

"And you don't think he's self-conscious?" Nova muttered, remembering her own encounter with Grace's brother. The shame in his aura had overwhelmed almost everything else.

"About what?"

There was no harm in being honest. "The Gift, I would be willing to bet. People find it uncomfortable to be around, and they can show it without realising."

Grace looked horrified. "Do you think he can tell?"

"Unspoken aren't as good at reading aura as we are," Nova said with a shrug, squashing down a bizarre urge to smooth things over and stop Grace from looking so anguished. "But if it was there to be picked up on, he probably did. Might not have even realised himself."