Agatine (Terres book II)

Chapter Twenty One

Wren looked both ways, then crept up the stairwell toward the roof. She'd taken to spending parts of the day up here, when the weather wasn't too hot and there weren't too many people calling. She hadn't seen Phina in hours. She'd scurried off sometime in the mid-afternoon and left Wren to fend for herself.

She had grown to look forward to the solitude, in a certain way. Spending the entire day with other people had a way of stealing her energy and her sanity until by the end she felt threadbare, like a blanket used one too many times. No one else had asked for her, but it wasn't much consolation when she had to talk to all of them anyway.

Before she could blink, someone's hand was on her shoulder. They spun her around by the wing and pinned her into her chest, arm clutched across her throat. The blade of the small dagger pressed painfully into the soft flesh of her chin. Wren's heart made drumbeats in her chest and she froze.

Suddenly she remembered the man in the caravan. She remembered the weight of his body as it crushed her legs, and the smell of his breath in her face. She remembered the sound of his voice as he demanded her money, and probably much more than that. Wren's hands closed into fists and she squeezed her eyes shut. 

"You are entirely too trusting," Phina said in her ear. The dagger scraped a line across her jaw and Phina let go. Wren rubbed her neck and took a giant step backwards, so fast that she didn't even notice the edge of the building approaching until she almost went over it. She screamed and pressed her body to the support post as her wings flapped clumsily at the air. 

Heat rose to Wren's face. Phina stood doubled over, laughing so hard it looked like she might collapse at any moment. Wren scowled.

"What was that for?" she demanded. 

"Relax, I wasn't going to hurt you," Phina said. She ran the edge of the dagger down her wrist. Wren flinched and looked away. When she turned back, she wrinkled her eyebrows in confusion at the lack of blood.

"It's a fake?" she said. 

Phina nodded, a sparkle in her eyes and a grin on her face. Anger flared in Wren's chest. She used the support beam to heave herself back onto the rough hewn stone and breezed past Phina toward the door, but Phina beat her to it and slammed it shut again. 

"Relax," she said.

"Get out of my way, Phina," Wren growled. She grabbed at the door handle. Phina placed her body in front of it and tucked the dagger back into the satchel she wore around her waist. They scrabbled for it for a moment before Wren gave up, tears stinging the corners of her eyes, and stomped back over to the ledge. I can't believe I trusted you.

"The point was not to make you uncomfortable," Phina said as she crept up behind her and kicked Wren's hand away from the water tank. Wren screamed again and wrapped her arms around it as the ground seemed to rush closer to her.

"Stop!" she shouted. Phina stopped kicking and Wren grabbed onto the support post like a cat away from water.

Phina let out a pointed sigh. "This time, it was only me. Next time, it might be the man who grabbed your wrist, or the one who beat your friend. Or someone even more dangerous." She climbed with all the grace of a dancer onto the edge of the roof. 

"Don't do that again," Wren said. Her heartbeat still rang in her ears, and the flush on her face made her feel dizzy.

"I won't, but I have something for you," Phina said as Wren crept back from the edge, still clinging to the support post of the water tower. She let go and balanced, sat far back enough on it that there was no danger of plummeting the three stories to the ground below. Sometimes even now it was hard to remember that she did, in fact, have wings.

"What is it?" Wren asked. Phina pulled a different dagger out of her bag, one that glinted red in the early evening light, and handed it to Wren. She took it by the handle, careful not to cut herself, and turned it in her hands.

It was a lovely piece of metalwork, hammered fine around the edges and sharpened to such a point that just looking at it prickled Wren's skin. It was much finer than the one she used to have. Her eyes darkened. She'd thrown it into the desert along with the memories that came with it, somewhere during the trip from the caravan to Agatine, and she never wanted to see it again. 

"I don't want this," she said, and she thrusted it back to Phina. She shook her head and handed it back to Wren.

"You're going to get hurt if you don't do something. I wasn't lying when I said you were too trusting," she said. Wren took the dagger in her hands again and resisted the urge to pitch it off the top of the building. Her shoulders tensed. The featherlets near her back bristled in annoyance.

"Why doesn't anyone think I can take care of myself?" she asked. She tucked the dagger into the tiny satchel she wore around her waist and didn't look Phina in the eye. It was far too fine a knife. She would sell it, when she got the first opportunity.

"Because you can't," Phina said. Heat rose up Wren's neck and into her face. She turned, ready to open her mouth and let the embers spill out hot and unabated. Phina's expression quelled them just as quickly. Her eyebrows pursed in worry, but her eyes were soft and impassive. Wren realized that her face was already lined with wrinkles.

"How many times have you given this speech before?" she asked, unable to stop one small tiny spark from coming out with the words. 

"None," Phina replied.

Wren softened a bit and looked at her knees so her eyes wouldn't catch the street below. "I don't believe you. And I still don't trust you." 

"Do you trust anyone? Do you trust Ittra even though she brought you here, or your friend even though he spent forever trying to get you to trust him? Do you really not trust me, given that you seem to have told me almost everything about yourself?" She laughed a soft sort of sarcastic laugh. 

"You don't know anything about me," Wren said, as her chest ignited with fury.

  'Everything' wasn't even close to everything. She hadn't told Phina about the trip across the desert, or the pain when she thought about her mother and the fact that their last conversation had been an argument. She hadn't told her about the man that pinned her to the ground and threw a fist at her face and would have done so much worse had she not moved to defend herself. She didn't tell her about the little book Rannok carried or how pretty the cactus flowers looked in spring when her father brought them home. 

"No," Phina admitted, and she leaned back on her elbows and stared out at the swiftly setting sun. "I don't, but I'm trying. You don't seem to be trying too hard to stop me."

"Why?"

"You're interesting," Phina replied. 

Wren's face burned. She folded her arms across her chest. A quick gust of wind made her shiver. "Is that it? I'm interesting?"

Phina shrugged. "I don't meet many people from the caravan. Or many girls who are as bad as keeping people out as you are. You try very hard, but we both know you're terrible at it. And I was right. You did need a friend."

"What makes you think we're friends?" Wren asked. 

"You're still here, aren't you?" Phina asked. Wren shot her a quizzical expression, as if that was supposed to explain anything. Phina laughed and stood up, then made her way toward the door.

"Meet me here in the evenings, I'll teach you how to use that dagger. I'm sure neither of us wants you to be killed, at any rate."