Page 71 of Of Flame and Fury

“You clearly need my help, anyway,” Coup added, when she didn’t reply. “How is it possible that you look worse than I do? Have you slept atallsince the race?”

His voice was taunting, trying to bait her into their usual barbed rhythm. But words kept sticking in her throat. She needed more time. She needed to figure out what the anxious insects in her stomach meant and why she couldn’t meet his eyes.

Kel could tell by the thin press of his lips that Coup wouldn’t take no for an answer. Finally, she forced herself to nod. “Fine. If you’re up for it.”

Coup adjusted his crutches. “A few bruises can’t stop me from helping with a chore or two.”

They walked in silence, keeping a slow pace. Kel opened and closed her mouth to speak too many times to count. The quiet between them grew and thickened until a knife could have pierced it.

Kel trudged to her small, square office. She scrambled through the white corridors between aviaries. She updated Cristo’s other tamers on her progress observing phoenix behavior in the different environments of each aviary.

Coup seemed determined not to leave her side.

“I have plenty of recovery ahead of me,” Coup sang, when Kel darted out of another aviary. Coup folded his arms and leaned against a wall. He raised his chin, offering a clear view of the red marks still lingering along his neck. “I can waitallday.”

Kel halted, rubbing her face. “If it’ll stop you lurking, let’s talk.”

Kel wrapped a hand around his arm and led him back through the maze. She felt his warmth through the gray shirt, all too aware of how her fingers bunched in the fabric. The pair twisted through the corridors and, too soon, pushed throughThe Prism’s entrance. Kel relished Coup’s stunned, slack features as he took in the diamond room.

“Cristo plans to use this place for phoenix rebirths,” Kel explained, as Coup wandered into the center of the room. “Theoretically, the diamonds can withstand the heat and stop any damage to the building. When the diamond gets too hot, it’ll turn to graphite. But the room hasn’t been used, yet.”

Kel drifted toward the nearest corner. Overhead, the only blemish in an otherwise flawless space, a security camera was mounted to a small incision in the roof. There was no light flickering on the camera and there was a film of dust covering the lens; they were truly alone.

She turned back to Coup. “What did you want to talk—”

“Why didn’t you visit me?”

Kel flinched. His eyes were duller than usual, his voice sharper.

“I-I’m sorry.” The words were brittle and forced. The room’s light was suddenly too bright. “I thought you’d want some time to rest.”

The lie drooped in the air between them. Coup hobbled closer. She didn’t know how to spark their usual teasing, the frustration of almost every conversation they’d ever had. What had changed?

She tried again: “I figured you’d appreciate some peace and quiet without me there to lecture you. A gift from the self-righteous sweetheart to the fallen hero.”

“Is that what’s wrong?” he asked dryly. “You’re mad because I called you self-righteous? I’m sorry, Varra. I was just… I wanted to make you squirm.”

Oh, he’d succeeded. But not in the ways he’d intended.

Kel shook her head, trying and failing to find the right words. “That’s not what I meant.”

“What, then?”

Kel forced her tongue to move, to wrap around words—anywords. “If you’re going to be sorry for anything, it should be for scaring me to death. You could have gotten yourself killed.”

His brows rose. “You were worried forme?”

“Of course I was! I thought I’d gotten you killed.”

Coup gave a harsh, unamused laugh. “This isn’t your fault, tamer.I’mthe one who risked our team’s future. I almost blew up everything we’ve worked for over the last months, and I didn’t care if I got hurt.”

Coup stood too close, breathing hard. She could almost hear his hammering pulse.

Kel swallowed. “Just promise you won’t do it again, all right?”

The diamonds pressed in sharp peaks at her back and there was nothing butCoupin this room. Broken reflections and echoes of his painful words. His eyes darkened to burned copper, and she couldn’t understand the way they darted across her face, searching.

“Promise me you won’t do it again, Coup,” she repeated. “I can’t lose—this. The Howlers,” she added, praying he hadn’t heard the hitch in her voice.

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