into the wagon bed which is overfull with weird straw. “Why are we taking straw to a kiln?” I frown, confused. “Does straw go into clay bricks?”
“We’re taking dried grapevines. Two types of loads go through the doors: materials and fuel. The kiln house is full of ignition paths and burning chambers. It’s more or less elliptical, and the flames move constantly, chasing its path. Beside the path are rooms that hold whatever clay needs firing. Tiles, bricks. The fire burns so hot the clay cures as the flames heat the room and pass onto the next.”
“Nifty! So we’re going to fork vines into the building to feed the fire?” I hook my thumb behind me to indicate the pitchfork I spotted.
“We are not—you will stay outside of the kiln house. You can go into the clay pit,” Bash declares. “And the vines are not meant for feeding the flames.”
“They won’t burn? And what do I do in the clay pit?”
Bash sighs. “Practice silence?”
“Seriously?”
Bash’s eyes crank deliberately wide and he slowly, slooowwwly turns his head to look down at me.
“Okay, he means seriously,” I mutter, and—careful not to pinch his tail during the maneuver—I cross my leg over my knee, bouncing my top foot. “Why did you throw me up here if you didn’t want me talking to you? I could have stayed back there and worked.”
Bash blinks, a series of disbelieving snaps of his eyelids, like he’s clearing rainwater from his vision, not my words. He drags his fangs over his bottom lip and faces forward almost determinedly, adjusting his grip on the reins, making the leather creak a little, which makes me wonder if he’s thinking of holding my neck in his hands instead of leather straps. “I had no idea you would talk this much.”
“It’s just a few simple questions.”
“Try to ask less.”
“I don’t know if you know this, but you’re sort of grumpy. And… no offense? But you’re also a little bossy.”
A surprised sound breaks from the big alien’s mouth. “You’re… still… talking.”
“You told me to ask less questions. I didn’t ask anythi—” I stop moving my mouth on account of the way he cuts a look at me that holds a distinct warning vibe, if I’m not mistaken. I hold up my hand in surrender. To really illustrate how I feel about being dragged along only to be forced not to say anything, I let out a very speaking sigh.
Bash’s teeth meet, gritting together (his lips are drawn up high enough all his teeth are clearly visible) and his eyelids lower so that he’s either giving the path to the kiln house some serious bedroom eyes, or he’s irked and he’s going to dash my body against the canyon wall here in about two-point-five seconds.
“I’m being quiet,” I inform him.
“The hells you are,” Bash declares before clucking to the Nawari, who pick up their legs faster, increasing our speed.
Despite what he thinks, I do really good at not saying anything—specifically when I don’t say anything back to that.
Do I get credit for my restraint though? Nope. Bash is shaking his head at me when we finally reach the kiln house, where he surprises me by carefully helping me down. I half expected him to scruff me by the neck and send me sailing. However, I think (although, he’s an alien, I could be reading him all wrong) he’s regarding me with a mixture of bewilderment and awe and—possibly, possibly—amusement. A real good thing because I feel like my insides are filling up with words, and I hope he’s still awed if at some point I can’t keep them in anymore and they spew out like explosive verbal diarrhea.
I glance around him at the fire house. It’s massive. It’s like a round-ish mound of brick, wider at the bottom, the walls tapering until they meet the wide and low-slanted roof. Doors ring the building—the openings to the chambers Bash mentioned, I surmise.
Since I’ve been informed that I’m not going inside, I can’t help it that I have to open my mouth to ask, “Where’s the clay pit you want me to be quiet in?”
Bash makes a choked noise. “The one you couldn’t be quiet in if I buried you in it? My Creator, woman—did you know you talk to yourself? Here.” He reaches over my head to pull the set of pitchfork handles out of the back of the wagon.
(Pssst: I am aware that I talk to myself. Lots of people have told me—plus, I’ve caught