22. All That Geometry Gibberish #4
For a long moment, all I could hear was his measured breathing. Then, with deliberate slowness, he lowered himself to the floor beside me. His knee bounced once, twice, before he stilled it. “Fine. Tell me something else.”
I tilted my head against the wall, studying the ceiling. “Like what?”
“Anything. How you learned all that geometry. Or what is the first thing you want to do when we get out of here.” His voice was rough. “Something that doesn’t make me want to strangle you.”
I huffed a laugh. “So geometry…Turns out when you’re the only one who can solve Master Kepler’s advanced geodesic puzzles, the other students will bribe you for the answers with their desserts.
” I tapped my lips with my pointer finger.
“And speaking of desserts, the first thing I’ll do is eat an entire tray of baklava.
Then, I’m challenging King Faisal to a math duel for his throne.
Winner gets the kingdom and a lifetime supply of honey pastries. ”
“Ah, so your ember is gluttony.” He grinned when I swatted his arm.
“I can’t believe your grand plan involves a sugar coma and treason.
” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “Remind me never to let you near a throne unsupervised. Or a dessert cart, for that matter.” A beat.
“Though I would pay to see you humiliate a king with a protractor.”
“Don’t tempt me,” I laughed. “What about you?”
He gave me a ghost of a smile. “Me? I’ll help you eat the baklava. For morale, of course.” He leaned his head against the wall behind us and closed his eyes. “And then we’re getting as far from this sky-damned palace as possible.”
We lapsed into silence again, but it was different now. Less like waiting for an axe to fall and more like…sharing the weight of it. My head found its way to his shoulder again. He didn’t pull away. If anything, his body relaxed, the tension in his muscles easing.
“If this goes badly,” he murmured, “I’m taking at least three of them out with me.”
I swallowed. “If we’re divvying it up, I’ll take out two and then destroy the tapestry.”
A genuine laugh this time. “Greedy.”
“Just logical division of labor.”
The jest hung between us, fragile as a pane of glass. The stone was cold against my back, but his breath was warm against my temple. And for the first time all day, the cold didn’t seem to sink as deep.
But when the clack of boot heels stopped outside our cell hours later, pure ice raked down my spine.
Griffon shot up and stepped between me and the line of ochre-clad guards.
The flickering orange light of their torches cast jagged shadows across the walls.
I could practically taste the metallic bite of fear on my tongue.
“Both of you are to come with us.” The guard had a face of deep lines and a voice like gravel.
Griffon eyed them up for a moment before he reached back to help me off the floor.
“Hands.”
Griffon held his fists out through an opening in the bars as they clamped manacles onto his wrists.
I went to do the same, but then a guard laughed as he jangled the keys in the lock. “No need, little girl.”
I narrowed my eyes. Was that condescension from a man whose entire job is to look intimidating and carry keys?
The guard with sandpaper for a voice led us out of the cell. The other two fell in behind us, their footsteps echoing in the corridor like the resounding ticks of a doomsday clock. This was it. My heart felt as though it was up in my throat.
Griffon’s arm brushed against mine as we walked, and I looked up to find him nodding with reassurance. “Just breathe.”
I let out the breath I didn’t realize I was holding and concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other.
The throne room pulsed with an otherworldly glow.
Light rippled as if the room were somehow suspended between this world and the next.
The air was thick with melted beeswax and aromatic oils.
Countless flickering candles on brass candlesticks taller than me were clustered throughout the hall, making the air shimmer.
They were quite serious about keeping the dark at bay tonight.
King Faisal stood near the throne with Mali talking to a cluster of exhausted soldiers covered in dust and sweat.
Malik was there, too, with several other advisors.
His thin face was pinched in that perpetual frown, as if someone had stitched his eyebrows together.
All eyes turned in our direction as we approached.
The king’s expression was ominously unreadable in the flickering light.
My pulse hammered in my throat as we stopped before them. The three guards fanned out, their presence a silent threat behind us. Even in his manacles, Griffon stepped closer to me and angled himself as if he could protect me from whatever was coming.
The king cleared his throat, cutting through the tension like a blade. “The relic was not found at your coordinates.”
Well. That's unfortunate. My promising career as a treasure-hunting mathematician just went up in flames.
Probably right along with the rest of me.