Otherbound by Corinne Duyvis Page B

his stead.
    Amara stared at her letters with a mixture of pride and fear.

ow come you’re not rehearsing with your friends?” Nolan asked, perched in Pat’s desk chair. The extra pill would need time to kick in. He had a hard time sitting still, though. He kept pushing the notebook on her desk back and forth and tapping his foot and spending a second too long in Amara’s world—
    â€”Cilla was reading on one side of the room while Amara finished up lunch at the fire pit with Jorn and Maart, rootpatties in hand, acting as if nothing was wrong. Jorn was looking at her with prying dark eyes, but he hadn’t said a word about how long she’d taken to find the mage—
    â€œâ€”I am.” Pat frowned. “Our drama teacher makes us rehearse together in the gym, but we don’t have a lot of time since we also have to build the set. That’s why we need volunteers. I asked Mom, but she’s too busy working.”
    Nolan held back a cringe. “Rehearsing with your friends at home, I mean.”
    â€œI just don’t want to make a big deal out of it. What if I screw up?”
    â€œYou won’t. I promise.”
    Pat fought a tiny surprised smile. Straight teeth pushedinto her bottom lip to keep it in line. Nolan couldn’t recall the last time she’d taken anything he said so seriously. For a moment he wasn’t sure what to do with himself.
    â€œThanks. Um—so I’m in the ER, and a girl just went missing from her room …” Pat stood by her bed, chest puffed out, ignoring schoolbooks and bags scattered around her feet. “No!” she bellowed. “I have to know where she went—”
    â€”Maart stood to clean up the mess, leaving Jorn and Amara at the fire pit. She should be calm. Jorn couldn’t know she’d contacted the mage. But if he did … Already, tension was locking up her spine; already, she was crushing her rootpatty between her fingers. Jorn had burned her simply for daring to read. He’d do so, so much worse for this.
    A clap shook the granary. She jerked. Thunder?
    â€œAgain? This
must
be backlash.” Cilla kept one finger in her book.
    â€œYes. I sense it.” Jorn smelled clean, a whiff of fish on his breath as he spoke—
    â€œâ€”
know
I’m a nurse! Don’t tell me what my job is!” Pat took a threatening step forward—
    â€”Jorn’s and Amara’s eyes kept meeting without a reason, and every time it held Amara still. She wanted to suck the patty’s remains off her fingers, just so she wouldn’t be stuck like this, but any movement might make Jorn snap.
    Just say it
! Amara wanted to shout.
Say what you want to say
! She tried to slow her breathing, and her frustration alongside it.She felt too loud. Too present. She needed to be invisible. Nolan fought off her fear, because he couldn’t let it crawl into him, he had to stay an observer, shouldn’t even be here—
    â€œâ€”you awake?” Pat was gathering thick bunches of hair into a ponytail, her movements irritated. Nolan found himself staring somewhere over her shoulder, swallowing as he tried to get a grip. Why was his throat so dry? He shouldn’t let Amara get to him.
    â€œRight. Sorry.” In his absence, his hands had pressed onto the notebook enough to warp the paper. Ink dotted his fingers. He flattened the pages, the familiar paper grain a comfort. He’d meant to jot down notes to show Pat he took her seriously, but he hadn’t written a word. “You’re doing great.”
    â€œReally?” Her hands dropped to her sides. She sounded at once suspicious and hopeful. Did she care that much about his opinion? Why did that thought make him so damn uncomfortable? “I’m trying for a Michelle Rodriguez vibe, you know.”
    Was he supposed to know that name? Dad had Rodriguez family down in Mexico, but Nolan guessed Pat meant an actress rather than that