Burning Bridges

Chapter Twelve: Hypocrisy

Jules laid back on the bed that was his now, staring up at the grey stone ceiling. Sky showed him to a room with three bunks where he'd sleep on the bed above Sakura, the little girl whose wings had been Clipped. His thoughts were a jumbled mess, filtering through everything Riku had said earlier by the cafe, everything that boy had just told him. Jules still didn't even know his name, but the way Max and Sky looked at him screamed leader. Leader of what? What exactly was this place? A safe haven, yes, but it felt like something more.

There was a knock at the door, even though it was already propped open. Jules was the only one in the room, but Sky still waited for his approval before coming in.

"I'm glad you decided to stay," she said, leaning against the ladder leading up to her bunk. "Settling in okay?"

Jules shrugged. "Actually, could I ask you a question?"

"'Course."

"Who was that boy? The one who came to talk to me?"

"You're telling me he went and gave you the welcome speech without telling you his name?" Sky shook her head, smiling in the way Jules would smile when Yuki did something stupid. "His name's Asano, but we call him Asa."

That didn't really tell him much, but he turned the name over in his mind. Asano. In Emaran, it meant light. Divinity. A strange name for someone who didn't seem very enchanted with their gods.

"He doesn't like Casts much does he?"

Sky let out a long breath, sitting on the bottom bunk of the bed across from Jules. "No, I'd say not."

"Why?" The question came out ruder than he'd meant, but a part of him felt like he needed to defend his grandfather. Another part of him was still thinking about everything Asano had said about growing up in the Cathedral, manipulated by the Castrealm Elders who maintained their country.

"I think you'd better leave that to him to tell you," Sky said. "But he's just like the rest of us down here. Asa ran from a home that wasn't safe for him and found one that was."

Sky left the conversation there, changing the subject to tell Jules about how they all shared chores to keep the space running and clean. Jules nodded along, barely listening. The Cathedral was the most important and well protected building in all of Emaru, and Sky had called it an unsafe home as if it was the same as any rundown house on the island. Perhaps for Asano, it had been. What was he supposed to think? Casts were chosen by the gods to keep their nation peaceful. It's why Jules hated Kurayami so much, for abusing that power.

His thoughts took him well into the night. The five others sharing their room had a thousand questions for Jules, but they gave him much needed space. Near lights out, Sakura handed him a necklace with a roughly carved stone fan.

"Haru says they're good luck," she said, nodding toward her brother across the room.

Jules smoothed the stone under his thumb as he wrote by candlelight a couple hours later, pouring his thoughts out onto notebook pages. Back home, he had an entire shelf of notebooks filled with years of thought dumping. Writing helped him sort through things, process them.

It must've been somewhere near midnight when a series of slamming doors and shouting startled him out of his thoughts. His new roommates were waking up, yawning and frowning at the open door. Asano dashed past, followed closely by Max shouting "This is why you don't go up there!"

Sakura scuttled out of her bed to slip into her brother's. "What's going on?"

He brushed her hair, still staring at the door. "I'm not sure."