Page 60 of The Garnet Daughter
Eventually, he grabs a data pad and connects it with the drone’s interior and makes himself comfortable, sitting with his back against the wall of lockers. When I join him, he tilts the screen slightly, allowing me to observe.
“Is that your stomach?” I ask as an angry rumble comes from his torso.
He laughs to himself and points to a small tool. “I miss Ruth’s bread. Probably the best I’ve ever had.”
I hand the tool to him. “I thought your father was a baker.”
“He is. But we rarely ate the good stuff. With 9 kids to feed, we got the stale and over-proofed batches.” He lines the pointy end of the tool into the small opening on the drone’s panel and delicately rolls it between his thumb and pointer finger, the tendons in his wrist flexing as he does.
August has briefly spoken of his parents’ occupations, his father the village baker and his mother, a grain farmer.
“That is a lot of children,” I say, taking the tool back and watching him inspect the work.
“Yes, and each one of my sisters is very different, so it might as well have been 100 children.”
“Is that why you get along with most people?”
“I don’t. I just know how different people operate because of it. Makes it easier in my line of work.” He laughs. “I am friendly to get people to bring their guard down so I can assess if they are a threat.”
“Oh, is that what you did to me?” I tease.
“No.” He thinks for a moment. “Our first night in your village when we spoke at the bonfire, I was so nervous, I drained my flask and had to go back to the guest tent.”
I can’t stop the giggle that escapes me. “What about Ferren? She said you were always kind to her.”
“That is much more complicated.” He makes wide eyes at the memory. “And I knew 99 had his sights on her from the very start, so he did a lot of the . . . investigating.”
He reaches across me to grab the next tool, so close I pull back so my chest does not bump into his arm.
It’s silent for a moment as he clips a wire and twists the tiny gold threads inside. “I can’t picture you as a baker, if the ship stew is any indication of your skills.”
He laughs hard, the kind where he throws his head back and his Adam’s apple bobs in his throat. Normally, it’s enough to make me join, but this time I find it . . . distracting.
“Or a farmer for that matter,” I quickly add.
“I fixed my mother’s equipment but knew it wasn’t for me, too many people, easy to get lost in all the noise as much as I love them.”
August adores his family. That is apparent with how much he speaks of them, even in the times it is not in a flattering light.
“We are opposites in that way.”
“How so?” he asks, furrowing his brow and leaning in.
“There were so many people in your family that you felt unseen.”
August lights up when it is just the four of us and he can talk for hours about anything at all, our undivided focus on him. I love hearing him open up, when he becomes so comfortable that he pushes past his need to charm and both sides of him are on full display, weaving in tandem.
“And you?” he asks me to finish my theory, and for some reason my heart skips.
“It was just Selene and me, too much attention turned into smothering protection.”
“Yeah, I don’t envy 99 when she finds out where you went and how he helped.” He stretches out his legs and presses his back to the wall. “But we both wanted to leave our homes as soon as we could, so . . . not opposites, I would say.”
I shake my head because he knows what I mean, even if he doesn’t like the sound of it. “Is it done?”
He holds the drone in both hands, the panel still open but the screen on the front now lit up. “Hopefully.”
“Do they roll around on the ground?”
