Page 33 of Xantera
Finally, I whack Malcolm across the face so hard, he falls sideways onto the rest of the bed.
I slump down next to him, breathing heavily as sweat beads against my skin.
“Good work, partner.” I lift up a hand. He shakes his head, his lips pinched in a suppressed smile, but slaps my palm anyway.
“Yeah. Good work.”
I can still feel the three forbidden objects pressing into me from my cloak pocket, but I don’t dare shed it now, even to cool down. As soon as I’m sure the sentry is long gone, I’ll sneak them all into my own personal room and figure out what to do with them there.
“Saskia?”
I open my eyes. “Yeah?”
Malcolm turns his head toward me, his smile fading. “I… I hope you know what you’re doing.”
“Hm?” My heart just calmed down, but now it begins to drum up against my ribs again.
“All the questions about the Dark Days. The deal we made. Now this argument with your coworker and this sentry interrogating you. I know you’re up to something. I just can’t think of what it could possibly be.”
The way he says that has me swallowing thickly. At this point, I doubt he would turn me in, but I’m also not sure he’d want to know the details of what I’m hiding—both in my pockets and in my heart.
What better way to know than to ask him, then?
“Do you want me to tell you?” I whisper. “What I’m up to, I mean?”
He blinks at me, surprise flicking through the rapid movements.
“It’s your choice,” I say when he continues to gawk at me.
“My choice?”
“Yes.”
It’s sad that so many choices have been taken from him that Malcolm looks positively awestruck at the possibility.
“It feels good, huh?” I sigh. “To have a choice.”
His eyes stick to mine with a raw and vulnerable look, like he wishes he could make a thousand more, before he turns his gaze back to the ceiling, concentration furrowing his forehead as he thinks about it.
“No,” he says finally. “Don’t tell me unless your life is in real danger. If your life is in danger, then I want to know. But not otherwise.”
Now it’s my turn to blink at him. I don’t think I could ever view Malcolm in a romantic way, but his words are tugging on my heartstrings in an entirely different manner.
“You’d put your own life at risk to help me if mine were in danger?”
The concept is a new, strange one. There are no Cardinal Rules saying you have to lay your life down for someone you love. Nothing that could force anyone into that kind of willing sacrifice for someone other than a Guardian.
Malcolm’s smile turns rather somber, but he nods.
“What else are friends for?”
Alone in my own room now, I slip the key from my pocket first.
It’s heavier than I think most keys would weigh, but I’ve never actually had to lock anything, so I’m not entirely sure.
This one looks ancient, with two twirling pieces that merge at the top of the bow, reminding me of a heart. There’s so many questions sprouting like weeds in my head again: did it really belong to the Guardians, or someone else? Do they realize it’s missing? How did Diggory even know where to steal it from?
I push those away and slide open the drawer of my dresser. The key makes a heavyclunksound when I place it toward the back. I’m going to have to find a better hiding spot because Rosalyn would have found it within a few minutes tops if she’d decided to search our housing unit.
