The Firefly's Burden

Revised Chapter Ten: What the Light Caught (Cassie)

I sat beneath the sycamore with the engine off and typed into the notes app on my phone.The coupe had held the afternoon heat under its roof, and the leather pressed warm through my skirt while the vent freshener gave off the synthetic citrus Mother considered clean. I lowered the passenger window an inch, enough to let in the smell of asphalt and cut grass without inviting anyone nearby to hear me talking to myself, then returned to the list I had started before leaving the library. Three sovereign lines removed before the Border Compacts were filed. Twenty-three days between armed blockades and public ratification. Property transfers recorded after the people authorizing them had disappeared from office. Mira had known where every contradiction led before I finished pointing it out, and she had looked far too pleased when I realized the governing houses in the textbook had once been something else.

I added and immediately disliked the final word. Mira had not been unclear. She had been precise in a way designed to prevent clarity, answering each question with just enough truth to make challenging her difficult. Her family was connected to the history. The owner of the book knew she had it. The erased lines were not lost. Every sentence had passed inspection without giving me the answer I had asked for, as though ordinary conversation came with terms she expected me to violate.

That should have occupied my attention more effectively than it did. Instead, Mira’s voice kept returning with the same infuriating warmth beneath it.

I locked the screen, set the phone in the cup holder, and adjusted the cuff of my blazer even though it already sat correctly against my wrist. She had been distracting me. I had pressed too close to whatever she was hiding, and Mira had reached for the most disruptive thing she could say. It had worked because I had not expected it, not because the observation mattered. The heat that returned beneath my collar came from the car, the weather, and the embarrassment of having allowed her to redirect the conversation for even a few seconds.

The explanation would have been stronger if Mira had not looked startled too. Color had climbed into her face before she recovered, and the smile she used afterward had appeared late enough to be defensive. She treated every exchange like a contest, but for one second neither of us had seemed certain who had scored the point.

I picked up the phone again and reopened the note. Beneath the line about her family, I typed and stared at the words. Ravenrest was full of girls who called themselves princesses because their fathers owned hotels or their grandmothers had appeared in photographs with senators. Mira had not reacted with vanity when I asked whether she belonged to one of the royal lines. She had gone careful. The answer had come quietly, without the teasing edge she used whenever she wanted me looking in the wrong direction.

The book itself belonged on the list of things that did not fit. Its leather had felt cold beneath my fingers despite the warmth of the study room, and something had seemed to shift under the cover when I stopped looking directly at it. I could still picture the suggestion of an emblem pressed into the surface, an eye or flame hidden beneath years of wear. Mira had not asked whether I saw anything. She had asked what I saw, as though the distinction mattered.

My phone vibrated against my palm before I could decide how to phrase that.

Mother’s name appeared above the preview. I nearly left it unopened, because she called when she wanted conversation and texted when she wanted a record that she had informed me. Then I saw Elliot’s name and opened the message before the notification finished settling across the screen.

Mom: Elliot’s fever went back up this afternoon. Dr. Salazar doesn’t think he’ll be discharged this week after all. They’re keeping him until the infection is fully under control. It may be quite a bit longer.

I read it twice, then dragged my thumb back across the line as if I might have skipped the sentence where she said he was improving again. The message ended in the same place each time. My hands remained steady, so I opened the reply field and typed before deleting it. Of course he was awake sometimes. That was not what I needed to know. lasted only a little longer. If the doctors had restricted visitors, Mother would say so. If they had not, she would wonder why I needed permission to see my own brother.

The second message arrived while the empty reply field blinked at me.

Mom: He asked whether you were coming. I told him you have school and practice. I’ll update you tonight.

The words blurred before I finished reading them. I blinked and looked toward the windshield until the rows of parked cars sharpened again, but a tear had already slipped down the side of my nose. I wiped it away with the heel of my hand, angry at the wet streak it left across my skin and angrier that part of me still noticed whether I had disturbed my mascara.

I should have gone yesterday. Mother had said his fever was down and the doctors expected to send him home soon, so I had accepted the convenient version and stayed at school. Practice needed attention. The project had a deadline. Elliot would be tired. I had arranged each excuse carefully enough that none of them sounded like one until he asked whether I was coming.

Another tear gathered before I could force the pressure behind my eyes back down. I pressed my sleeve beneath it and lowered my head, using the steering wheel to block the view through the windshield. Most of the lot had emptied, and the few cars left near the athletics building belonged to people who were nowhere nearby. I had time to fix my face before driving to the hospital or home or wherever Mother decided I was most useful.

A movement near the back row caught in the narrow space between my sleeve and the wheel.

Mira stood beside her black sports car with one hand raised toward the door handle. She had stopped walking. Her head was turned toward me, and even through the layered reflections on both windshields, I could tell she was looking directly into my car.

I lowered my arm and sat back.

Mira should not have reached the lot in time to see anything. She had remained in the study room after I left, but apparently she had not remained long enough. Now she stood two rows away holding a piece of me I had not chosen to show her, and she did not even offer the courtesy of pretending otherwise.

I straightened my shoulders and put both hands on the steering wheel. If she smiled, I would get out of the car and make sure she regretted it. If she tried to be kind, I might do something less reasonable. Mira only raised one eyebrow, the same expression she used whenever she believed she had caught me making a mistake.

The familiarity helped. I narrowed my eyes at her, and the corner of her mouth shifted without becoming a full smirk. Whatever sympathy she might have felt, she had enough sense not to display it.

Then she closed her hand around the door handle.

Sunlight slipped through the sycamore leaves and struck the black window beside her. The reflection changed so quickly that my eyes followed it before my mind had decided there was anything to see. Ginger brightened into red and gold beneath the surface, as if light had entered the strands instead of landing on them. One of Mira’s green eyes darkened and caught points of silver. The curve of her ear looked too narrow near the top.

She opened the door, and the reflection became ordinary again.

I leaned closer to the windshield and searched the glass for the same angle. The sunlight continued moving across the lot as the branches shifted overhead, scattering gold over windows, mirrors, and polished metal. My vision was still damp enough to soften the edges of the steering wheel. Mira’s car window was curved and tinted. Any one of those things could have distorted her reflection.

Mira slipped into the driver’s seat and shut the door. Through her windshield, her hair looked ginger again. Her eyes were too far away to examine, and the loose strands beside her face covered most of her ear. She checked the rearview mirror before looking toward me, and the tension in her shoulders made the explanation of harmless glare less convincing than I wanted it to be.

I wiped beneath my eye again, slowly this time, because there was no longer any point in pretending she had seen nothing. Mira’s chin lifted by a fraction. She understood the acknowledgment, though whether she also understood what I had seen remained uncertain.

I started the engine and backed out from beneath the sycamore. As I turned into the lane between our rows, Mira’s car came to life behind the windshield. I kept my eyes on the exit until I passed directly in front of her, then glanced through the side window.

Her hair was ginger. Her visible eye was green. Nothing about her face looked impossible, but she watched me checking each feature and did not look confused about why.

I held her gaze until my car moved beyond hers, then turned toward the east drive with Mother’s unanswered message still glowing in the cup holder.