It's Only a Matter of Time

Chapter 13

A/N: Hi! Sorry I haven't posted in forever, summer made me lazy XD

Hope you enjoy the new chapter! It didn't got at all how I planned it, but I still think it's pretty good. Let me know what you think!

After that was sorted out, Inej took her spot again and looked Nina in the eye. "We need to have a talk."
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"He said what?!"

Inej flinched and motioned for Nina to be quieter, as the raised voice was starting to draw attention.

Nina tactfully lowered her voice, but her exasperation was still very much there. "Not necessarily. What kind of answer is that?"

Inej shrugged, feeling oddly protective of Kaz's strange words. After all, it was obvious he hadn't said it just to say something. It carried meaning. And if that meaning was what Inej suspected...

"Inej, what are you thinking about?" Nina's voice interrupted her thoughts.

Inej shrugged, trying to seem casual. "Nothing much. Just Kaz's words."

Nina sighed like she was trying to teach a small child that wouldn't listen. "Inej, dear, I've been friends with you since forever. I know when something is up. I can read it on your face."

Inej looked around for a reflective surface she could see her face - and the telltale marks Nina was talking about that were apparently on it - in, but there wasn't any around them in the small cafe.

Meanwhile, Nina continued. "Your eyes are faraway, which means the thought isn't all negative, but there's also a small wrinkle in between your eyebrows which signals that you're confused. So tell me, Inej. What's got you pleasantly confused?"

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That night, Inej went to bed with a slightly lighter heart. She had told Nina almost everything - the boy from her dreams and the chance of him being someone she knew now had felt too personal to share - and sharing some of the questions that gnawed at her at night felt good.

As she drifted off the sleep, Inej told her self that maybe, tomorrow, she would tell Nina the rest. That maybe her trust issues wouldn't interfere this time.
She ignored the voice in her head that whispered that it was bad to lie to yourself, especially about such things as trust.

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Inej woke up gasping, her blanket tangled around her legs. There was wetness on her cheeks, and on the pillow as well.
She sat up and glanced around the room, feeling as if there was still that leering gaze on her, but her room was empty. A waxing gibbous moon shone though the open window, just slivers away from being full.

Inej stood up from her bed, shaking off the remaining bits of the nightmare which still clung to her. She walked to the window and opened it, a cool breeze immediately flowing in. Inej hadn't noticed how hot her room had been before she'd opened the window.

Led by an impulse, she leaned out of the window and surveyed her surroundings. There was a ledge which ran underneath the window, towards the side of the building where the room sloped downward.

It was almost too easy for Inej to climb out and get to the roof. She'd done this a lot when she had first gotten here, to this loud, bustling city. When she couldn't sleep at night, she would crawl out of the window in her room and sit on the rooftop, looking at the city below. It was a link to her childhood, to years spent running on sun-warmed shingles as laugher echoed all around them.

Now, as Inej sat there, the cool wind drying her tears and blowing her nightshirt into a bell shape, she felt like she was back in those first days when she was all alone in this new, strange city which didn't care for her.

She sat there until the sun came up, lighting up the sky little by little and then coming up itself, glorious yellow on a background of pinks and light blues.