Girls at the Edge of the World by Laura Brooke Robson

Author:Laura Brooke Robson [Robson, Laura Brooke]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Young Readers Group
Published: 2021-06-08T00:00:00+00:00

32

ELLA

After the ball, the flyers separate into camps. In the first, Natasha, Ness, and Gretta, who all have an edge to survive the Flood. In the second, Katla and Sofie, whose prospects are markedly bleaker.

I don’t realize that I’ve been invited to join the latter camp until, on a particularly cold morning a few days after the ball, Katla and Sofie come into the studio and head straight for me. Sofie sips a cup of tea. Katla holds two more. I’m confused, at first, when they sit down on the floor beside me. Katla extends one of her cups.

I stop stretching to look at her.

“Nasty cold out,” she says. “This helps.”

It tastes like cinnamon and burns the back of my throat. When Natasha comes in, wearing her big sweater and a knit hat, she glances at the three cups. Her eyes slide over them quickly. She goes to her silks without a word.

I start to spend nearly all my time with Sofie and Katla. When I eat, they sit beside me. When I practice a new element, they offer to help.

I enjoyed fashioning myself as a detached, indomitable outsider. I’m disappointed by how much I appreciate their company. As it turns out, you can call yourself an assassin and still want friends.

I can’t remember the last time I had friends. Cassia was always more than that. Before her, I had my brothers and a few acquaintances near my age, but even our closest neighbors were a generous walk from our farm. There was the flower girl in town I always held a candle for, but I hardly knew more than her name.

But the more I see of Sofie and Katla, the less I see of Natasha. She misses meals. She practices hard and leaves quickly. I feel a pinch in my stomach whenever I think of the way she danced with Nikolai, but still, it’s hard not to worry.

As the weeks pass, no one shows any sign of budging. The sun is sleepy and more reluctant to rise each morning as we tumble toward bear season. We’ve all been counting the days since Storm Five. Two months? Already? Our luck can’t last forever. The feeling of Storm Four, overdue, hangs in every heavy cloud. I’m antsy for its arrival. Unlike everyone else, I’m not counting to Storm One—I’m counting to Storm Two, when I get to kill Nikolai and finally be free of the suffocating weight of vengeance. And also be dead. I’ve been hung up on that whole “dead” part lately.

On the coldest morning I’ve faced yet, a Friday, I’m stretching on the floor of the studio. Trying to remember if I have anything planned for the weekend ahead. I have no excuse not to go visit Maret, except for the fact that I don’t want to. She’ll want to talk about murder and Cassia and Nikolai, and—I just want to think about something else. For once. Just for a few days.

Katla sits down next to me. “It’s my sister’s birthday,” she says.

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