Shadow Road: Book 1 of the Shadows Rising Trilogy

39. The School

11th of Nema, Continued

Eighty-six was quite small for an apartment, but after four weeks stuck in Penweather's cabin it seemed spacious and airy. I stepped all the way inside and glanced around. There was a good-sized window in the far wall, with a quaint rope bed beneath it. I made note of that immediately. The breeze would be lovely. There was also a corner bureau and a proper closet, with enough space left over for a pair of padded chairs and a writing desk. Best of all, there was enough room that I could move about freely without immediately running into anything. It was clean, too. And it was mine.

I set my belongings down on one of the chairs and made the bed with the simple linens Ydara had given me.

I unpacked my things.

Opened the shutters.

Dusted off the bureau and the writing desk.

Moved the chairs around.

Put the chairs back.

Then I gave in, flung myself down on the bed, and stared up at the beam-and-caneplaster ceiling. It was too quiet. I wasn't going to sit around waiting for someone else's garden to sprout before I found something to fill my time. I'd go mad. Barely half an hour into being a free woman, and already I couldn't stomach the idea of being alone with myself. The stillness in the apartment was thick and sneaky, creeping in on me, squeezing closer without any noise or people or distraction to keep it at bay. There were no off-duty sailors singing a shanty, no tread of booted feet overhead, no snap of sailcloth in the wind...

I shoved myself up off the bed, strode for the door, and snatched it open. NaVarre might still be in that white building down on the docks. I'd just have to beg for something to keep me busy.

~~~

When I got to the dock office, the doors were locked, and no one seemed to be inside.

An old man sitting on a bench across the boardwalk from the office said NaVarre had gone to the saloon, so that was where I went next. There wasn't any sign of him in the saloon, either, although one of the waitresses thought he might have gone up to the school, since the Director had come looking for him while he was eating, and the two had left together.

I thanked her and ducked back outside. Then turned straight around and went back in to get directions.

~~~

The edge of the bench rasped my palms raw, but I ground my teeth and hung on as the repurposed military Gopher crashed into and then out of another pothole. The corresponding bounce of the suspension threatened to send me flying into the wooden high-sides one second, and the wicked jolt that followed nearly tossed me through the open top of the cargo bin the next. Then the bottom of the bin came up at me in a rush and I landed back in my seat with a bone-jarring thump - only to brace myself for the next joggle. Once again, I mentally kicked myself for not walking. It would have been safer. I would have had a spleen when I got there.

The driver shouted something, her words drowned out by the racket of the engine. Then the ancient machine slowed with a squeal of braking clamps.

At last... I let out a breath and closed my eyes, prying my aching fingers from the seat as I sagged against the rough slats behind me.

When I opened my eyes again, what looked very much like a reflecting pond was rolling by outside the cargo bin, prim and civilized. Bright yellow and pink lochi lilies spangled the surface. A bronze fountainhead came next – a great, coiling angpixxe rearing from the water in wild plumes of spray.