As it had been on our journey to the capital, the interior of the airship retained its peculiar charm—polished wood warmed by lamplight, velvet cushions carrying the faint scent of old perfume and travel. A moving parlor suspended between places, claimed by neither departure nor arrival.
I sat at a small table near the window, folding paper with careful precision. Origami—as I had long been used to doing—an art of patience, of shaping emptiness into meaning. The crease resisted my thumb, just slightly. I corrected it anyway, though my thoughts refused similar obedience.
Miss Halle was not keeping me company. She sat beside Miss Lakshmi instead, absorbed in a book, their heads inclined toward one another like conspirators of calm. Victoria sat nearby—but not close. Close enough to exist. Far enough to ache.
I did not know what to say to her.
I was angry at myself. Furious, even. Beneath that heat lay something thinner and sharper, a hesitation I dared not name. With the paper poised between my fingers, I risked a glance in her direction.
She sat curled slightly inward, a throw pillow held against her chest as though it were ballast, her gaze fixed on the drifting sky beyond the glass. Snow fell there, soft and untroubled, as if the world below had never learned the price of consequence.
I turned away too quickly and resumed folding. My pulse thudded in my ears. I pretended not to hear it, nor to notice the way her eyes lingered a moment longer than coincidence allowed.
After a while, the storm inside me settled—not vanished, merely quieter.
The anger remained. At the capital's incompetence. At the careless machinery of authority. At the disappointment that would greet me upon my return, delivered in whispers and polite silences. I exhaled and placed the finished lotus on the table, its pale petals neat and bloodless.
Looking out the window again, I let my thoughts wander.
My brother did not want me doing this. Of that much I was certain. I could not pray and do nothing. I could not kneel while people died. Perhaps that was why he had chosen the capital rather than our province as our destination. Had we been ordered home, I would never have agreed to leave the battle behind.
He may have expected something of me. But not this.
Miss Lakshmi's voice reached me faintly as she instructed Miss Halle to prepare drinks and light refreshments. I resisted the urge to look her way. Though she had offered no accusation, I felt judged all the same—as if my failure had already been recorded somewhere beyond appeal.
I glanced toward Victoria again.
She was playing chess with Miss Lakshmi now, her posture attentive, her expression politely engaged. Victoria hovered over a knight, then withdrew her hand. Miss Lakshmi took the bishop without looking. The sight drew a bitter smile from my lips.
I had frightened her. Or hurt her. She had noticed my unease and reached for me in the only way she knew how—and I had turned away.
Fool.
With steps so quiet they barely registered—or perhaps with thoughts too loud to allow for sound—Miss Halle appeared at my side and placed a glass in my hand.
"Here you are," she said gently. "The wind always clears the smoke."
Then, with a softer smile, she was gone.
"Thank you," I murmured, uncertain she heard.
The juice was a deep, luminous red. Too red. Its sweetness carried me back to the letter still resting on the desk at the inn—carefully written, neatly folded, unsent.
I had not posted it.
I feared they would call for my return at once. And for reasons I could not fully name, that felt like betrayal.
I drank anyway. The sweetness lingered longer than it should have.
Across the cabin, Victoria looked up briefly. Our eyes did not meet. Yet for the first time, I felt not peace, but resolve—a thin, fragile thing, and mine nonetheless.
The fragrance of fruit hung in the air, and even the airship seemed to sigh, as though trying—earnestly, imperfectly—to clear the air.
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