Reversed

xiv. fourteen

"Yes." Sophie said begrudgingly, hesitant to admit it. But she was able to swallow her pride if it meant stopping her stomach from growling. The Neverseen had offered huger training, but Sophie had failed on multiple occasions. She thought that the 'hunger is a choice' nonsense the Exilium coaches had tried to teach them was the biggest load of bull she'd ever heard.

Keefe tilted his head in thoughtfulness, eyes still focused on her. "If I leave and go get you food myself, you'll probably run away again," he thought out loud.

"Of course I won't!" Sophie smiled sweetly.

Keefe gave her a side-eye. "So—"

He was interrupted by the door opening noiselessly. But no one appeared.

"Biana, is that you?" Keefe asked.

A brown-haired girl popped out of thin air next to Keefe. "Yes," she said sheepishly. "I heard your voice in here as I was passing by, and I wanted to see what was going on."

"She tried to run away again." Keefe gestured at Sophie, again with the same ghost of a smirk.

"Again?" Biana asked. "When did she run away before?"

Keefe shrugged. "When hasn't she tried to run away since we first saw her again?"

"Good point." Biana looked over at Sophie. "What were you guys talking about?"

"Foster's hungry," Keefe said. Sophie's stomach growled again. She wanted to smack it. Perfect timing, stomach, she thought. Then: Great, now I'm talking to my stomach.

Biana smiled at that. "Do you want to go get food?" she addressed Keefe. "Or should I?"

"I can go get some," Keefe said.

"Okay." Keefe left, closing the door behind him but not before fixing Sophie with another long look. "I don't think I have to tell you not to underestimate the Queen of Sparkles over here. So don't try any more shenanigans." He wagged his finger at her. 

"Sooooo..." Biana said.

This is going to be awkward, Sophie thought. She fixed her once-friend with a glare.

She wished that Biana would leave. So she could run away. Or try to. Most realistically, Sophie would make it out the door and then decide that curling up in the middle of the hallway and sleeping sounded like a better idea. But anything would be better than this suffocating awkward silence. 

Sleep sounded like a good idea right now...

"Do you remember... anything?" Biana asked, hands fidgeting with something on her cloak. 

Sophie couldn't muster the energy to think about how she was supposed to respond to Biana. She was so tired. She flopped down on the cot and laid her hands over her eyes. "Yeah."

Biana huffed a breath. Sophie squinted open her one eye to see Biana start to walk around the room, running her fingers over the tiny glowing specks. More tiny suns, Sophie thought, amused.

Biana sighed. She said something softly, so soft that it was hard for Sophie to hear. But even her tongue was tired, so Sophie didn't ask her to repeat it.

The door opened again, and Keefe walked in with a silver plate. Biana pulled her hand back from the wall and turned to him. Keefe strode over to Sophie and set the food down on the edge of the table. 

Sophie had started calling it a table because cots were infinitely more comfortable. This 'cot' only had an extremely thin cushion built into the surface, as if someone had made a measly failed attempt at making it more comfortable. 

Sophie's mind was sluggish with a thick layer of fog, but the food Keefe had set down smelled so good that she mustered the energy to sit up and struggle to eat it. Vaguely, she saw that there were custard bursts and little cubes of what looked like fluffy bread. Sophie shoved some of the custard bursts into her mouth.

In the back of her mind, she thought that maybe she shouldn't be eating food given by the Black Swan, and that she definitely shouldn't be nodding off in the middle of their hideout.  

She realized Biana and Keefe hadn't left the room, and glanced up. "What are you looking at?" she mumbled.

"Nothing," they said in unison, and looked away.

Sophie found her gaze crawling over to Keefe against her will. Maybe it was because right now, she had a feeling that he would be smiling at her shoving her face full of food, ready to crack some sort of joke, and she wanted to see it. But he wasn't.

Sophie wondered if he would ever smile again, and this time, she didn't have the energy to ignore the thought. So when she drifted off, and Biana and Keefe left the room, Sophie kept finding her drifting mind trailing back to Keefe's vanished smile.