might’ve been it. Hawk had said not to leave the building, but he couldn’t possibly mean going across the street. I grabbed my jacket as Zab waited for me.
The wind hit my skin, and it felt like I was going to get instant frostbite. It still felt warmer than the chill in the office.
Zab didn’t waste any time questioning me. “So what’s wrong? Is it practice? I know it’s not going so well.”
“It would be easier if that was the problem. I mean, don’t misunderstand me, practice is a mess—I’m a mess—but that’s not the thing that’s bothering me most. I have one friend I met here who’s stuck in a factory, which is sucking the life out of her, and I can’t do anything about it. I left another friend, who’s more like family, back home. She’s probably worried sick at this point, and I can’t do anything about that either. I just wish I could’ve given Loris word so she didn’t worry. I’m afraid she’s going to think I’m dead by now.”
“I can’t do anything about your friend in the factory, but why don’t you write Loris a letter?”
“I don’t think journaling is going to help right now.”
“I don’t mean journaling. I mean write one and send it to her. You can send mail to Rest. We don’t get any back. It’s a one-way correspondence, but you can send it out. Well, except at Christmastime. Sometimes the miscellaneous letter to Santa comes through. We used to field the big items occasionally, but Hawk thought it wasn’t worth our time after a while. Now we just shred ’em if they end up here.”
“I can get a letter to her?”
“Yeah. We can do it today if you want.”
I turned to run back to the office.
“What about our cocoas?” Zab asked, still standing in the same place.
This was going to be a tough letter. A little cocoa might help.
Dear Loris,
I’m sorry I disappeared, but…
But what? I was kidnapped to Xest? A place most had never heard of? Was being held as an indentured servant to a warlock? Sorting slips from Helen, a huge machine that tapped into all the wishes in the world and monetized them? She’d think I was alive but off my rocker if I sent this.
I tapped the pen on the table a few times, staring at the page. This was not a pen letter. This really called for a pencil for the first hundred drafts. I dropped the pen on the table and leaned back, groaning and running my hands through my hair before draining the last sip of cocoa.
“What’s wrong?” Musso asked, his voice as gruff as ever. I’d begun to realize the gruffer it was, the worse he felt for you. Was everyone aware of my near-daily crash and burn?
“She’s trying to write a letter to someone she’s worried about in Rest,” Zab explained, before I had to.
“Oh,” Musso said. “That never goes well.” He followed those words of wisdom up with an ambiguous grunt and then walked back to his desk.
I glanced at Zab. “I can’t begin to think of what to write. Everything sounds unbelievable. I’m trying to reassure her, but I feel like an idiot with nothing to say, and I’m the worst liar.”
It was Belinda’s turn to huff from her corner of the office, obviously agreeing with the idiot part. She didn’t make any other noises, but her lips moved as she silently spoke to herself. As long as she kept it to herself, I didn’t care. She could think whatever she wanted, including that I was an idiot or the best liar out there.
Zab sat on the corner of my table and bent over my paper, looking at the sparse words.
“Okay, write this. ‘Dear Loris, I’m sorry I disappeared, but I received an emergency call in the middle of the night from a long-lost cousin who was in dire straits. As I have so little family, and none close, I felt the immediate need to rush to her side. I hope you received my earlier notice that I slid under the door of your shop. I wanted to follow up with this correspondence so you know how much it pains me that I had to leave you in such a predicament. As soon as my cousin is out of the woods, I shall return. Again, my gravest regrets about leaving you so suddenly.’”
It took me a few more minutes to finish scribbling off Zab’s dictation. Nothing about it sounded like