The Scribe Read Online Free PDF Page A

destroying them.”
    A neat circular dent in the dryboard stared at me. I pushed off my knees and rose up until I towered over her. I slowly took the two nails out from where I held them between my teeth.
    “You know,” I said, “I’d really rather not hear your analysis of all that time you were snooping in my head.”
    She had the decency to blush and stare at her feet, which were narrow, thin like the rest of her. Almost as small as a child’s. A confusion of guilt and anger heated my face. Why did she have such an effect on me?
    “I’m sorry.” She peeked up at me. “I forget that you don’t know me. That happens sometimes. I can’t always keep straight what I’m supposed to know from what I actually know.”
    “How about you just forget everything you know about me?” Even as I asked, it sounded ridiculous in my own ears.
    She cocked her head to the side, giving me a quizzical look and tapping her chin. “Who are you again?” Then she beamed a smile and stuck out her hand. “Hi! I’m Ava Trinkle. Nice to meet you.”
    Her outstretched hand hung in the air, fingers lined up and floating. I waited a beat too long, then switched the hammer to my left hand and shook hers with my right. It was like taking hold of a dove, feather soft and weightless. I took care not to crush it.
    “Sasha Rimbali,” I said. “And I’m not particularly pleased to meet you…” When her blond eyebrows drew together, I smiled a little. “Under these unfortunate circumstances,” I finished. Her smile flashed again, blinding me with the delight behind it. It was far too easy to make her smile. It felt like skating out over thin ice, all while knowing it would crack and swallow me whole. Far too much like losing control. And that was a very dangerous feeling for me to have.
    I dropped her hand and gripped the cool steel edge of the sink as I leaned back against it. “So, Ms. Trinkle. You get captured by a ruthless Clan, sneak out under the cover of darkness, and join up with another Clan filled with extreme jackers and dangerous talents you don’t even understand.”
    She hiked up her eyebrows.
    “Ok, you might know a little about what we can do, but still. What makes you think one of us won’t sell you back to Arlis at the first opportunity?” I’d sooner hammer my own head, but she didn’t know that. Or maybe she did.
    “I trust you, Sasha,” she said. “You’re not the kind of person who would do that.”
    “You have no idea what I’m capable of.” I wondered how she could trust me when she had seen at least some of the things I had done. “And you’re far too trusting. You need to watch that, or you’ll find yourself in trouble so deep even we can’t get you out of it.”
    She gave a tentative smile, and a half beat later I realized what I had said. “Not that we’re your babysitters,” I grumbled, somehow making it sound worse. I waved my hand at the hammer-sized hole in my dryboard. “I have work I need to do.” I hoped she would take that as a hint to leave.
    “Can I help?” she asked.
    I blinked, not expecting that response. “You know how to swing a hammer?”
    “Well, no,” she said, biting her lip. I sucked in a breath as my insides did some kind of dance in response to that. “I’m fantastic at painting, though.”
    “I’ll let you know when we get to the painting stage.”
    She grinned and slipped out of the doorway, casting a last look over her shoulder as she went. I waited until she was gone before I quietly let out the breath I was holding. Then I lined up another nail on the dryboard, ignoring the hole for now, and pounded more fiercely than before. If she stuck around full-time, I would need a lot more construction work that involved pounding on things.
    A handful of minutes and two dryboard panels later, Julian stuck his head in the doorway. I rolled my eyes and took the nails from my teeth. It was like Grand Central Station in here.
    “You have a minute?” Julian asked.
    I