Splintered Mind (Shattered World Book 1) by W.R. Gingell

Author:W.R. Gingell [Gingell, W.R.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2024-10-05T00:00:00+00:00

Bazza looked at Luca narrowly as he entered the Tea House again in Viv’s wake, but his granite face split into a beaming grin when he caught Viv’s eyes.

“Signing in!” Viv said cheerfully. She didn’t feel particularly cheerful, but Bazza had the kind of grin that made her feel automatically better, and the way that he dwarfed the front desk while carefully holding a far-too-delicate pen in his massive left hand would have made the sourest person smile, Viv felt.

Upstairs on the sixth floor, Luca’s area had unaccountably grown larger once again, and now had within it an armchair with a high, dimpled back, a coffee table that seemed to be bolted to the floor, and a single mug sitting atop the coffee table. There was also what seemed to be a camp bed folded up as much as it could be while also bolted to the floor.

Viv had sat within the range of that new taped area just yesterday, and even though she was well outside it this afternoon, it made her feel oddly unsafe. More, it made her feel as if Luca was slowly taking over the sixth floor like some kind of infectious disease.

Luca, as much as Viv, gazed at the area—and he chuckled quietly to himself.

“I was a very good boy last night,” he said, more to himself than to Viv, she thought. “Very, very silly of me.”

Viv had expected that it would take some convincing to get Luca to go back into his taped-off area, but he bounced into it without a second thought—or so it seemed. He sat down with a flourish in the armchair, still bouncing slightly, and crossed his legs beneath him.

“Notebook, Viv!” he said. “I have important things to say!”

“I don’t have a notebook,” Viv said, crossing the room to her desk. The tablet was there, although she hadn’t seen any sign of Jasper since she and Luca returned to the Tea House. If Luca wanted things recorded, she would record them. “I’m also not your secretary.”

“Boring,” called Luca, from across the room. “You’re soaking in too much of Jasper.”

Viv dragged her rolling chair across the floor with the tablet sitting on it, while Luca moved from armchair to trestle bed and promptly laid down on it. From there, he watched her all the way across the floor, and waited for her to sit down before he sat up and said, “You can still sit on the floor.”

“I’m an adult,” Viv said coldly. “And I sit on chairs.”

“You’ll hurt your back again,” he said.

“You just like looking down at me,” said Viv, and Luca made a small, choked, crowing noise of laughter.

He didn’t answer that charge; instead, he proceeded with a non sequitur. “Where’s Jasper?”

“I don’t know,” she said.

Being back in the Tea House was oddly uncomfortable. Outside, it had been easy to convince herself that she didn’t need to report last night’s…events to Jasper. Inside, it was harder to continue to think that she didn’t need to bring up the

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