Page 30 of Under Restless Skies

“He sounds harsh.”

She huffs. “Harsh is too kind of a word to describe him.”

And there’s something else puzzling me. “He can expel recruits? But you can’t quit once admitted, right?”

Celine shakes her head. “After you swear, you can’t quit, no.”

“But you can be expelled.”

“I know what you’re thinking. If you want to quit, all you have to do is irk Commander Mallor. But it doesn’t work that way. If they think you’re trying to get expelled, you could be sent to prison.”

That doesn’t make sense. “How would they know?”

She shrugs. “Perhaps they don’t.”

I glance at the enormous windows. The idea of having to clean them all makes them look ten times bigger, but I’m sure everything has a solution. “Tell me what you’re doing, and how you’re cleaning them.”

“I use this, and this.” She shows two pieces of fabric, each smaller than a dishcloth. Then she gestures to a bucket. “I wet one piece here, wipe, then dry.” She points to a smaller bucket further behind. “I can clean the cloth there, if it gets too dirty.”

“How do you go up?”

She points to a flimsy wooden ladder.

I frown, confused. Cleaning with these small cloths would take a week, at least. No wonder she’s been crying. “Is that how you’re supposed to clean the windows?”

She shrinks her shoulders and looks at me, eyes wide. “How else do you clean them?”

“They didn’t tell you how to do it?”

“They brought me here, gave me the cloths and the buckets…”

The windows look even bigger now, and her task absolutely impossible. “Are you allowed to get more cleaning supplies, tools? Even if we need to keep going like this, I’ll need my own cloths.”

She nods. “You can go to the supply room.” Her tone is still so sad, so hopeless.

I realize that’s why she was sitting on the floor and crying when I came in; she had given up before trying.

She’s not even considering a solution, and I need to shake that despair out of her.

“Take me there. Rosalia told you to guide me, right? So that’s what you’ll do. And we’ll find something more appropriate, bigger, and then we’ll go faster. We will finish cleaning these windows today, and let’s not even consider any alternative, all right?”

“All right,” she says slowly, her tone cautious and still despondent.

I don’t think she believes we’ll get those windows cleaned on time. But I do. Perhaps focusing on a small goal is the distraction I need to fight off my numbness and shock.

Then I’ll come up with a solution for me. I won’t cry and give up, no. That’s never the answer.

The nearest supply room is a few floors down, so we descend narrow, dark stairs lit by faint lumos jars.

The place is tucked away in a corner at the end of a cramped corridor, a small room where a gray-haired man stands behind a wooden counter. At least his smile is pleasant. I ask for larger cloths and long brooms. The man writes down what we are borrowing in a book, and Celine signs it.

Once we get everything, we rush back up the stairs to that ballroom. Then we get to work quickly. I tie the cloths around the brooms, and since Celine can only use one arm, she wipes the bottoms of the windows while I climb the ladder and clean the tops. Sure, I’m doing more than her, but it’s fair because she’s hurt.

Even then, I keep an eye on the sandglass, and as I watch the grains fall, my confidence falters, until I remind myself that I’m getting better and faster. It’s satisfying to wipe the glass with the broom to fully reveal its colorful shapes. Some of them are drawings of a large, golden dragon—Auranius—but there's also a man and a family, who I think are the first king of Dracolius and his household. Some mosaics depict attacking dragons, breathing fire and destruction on our land.

I wish I could see the sunlight peering through them, lighting up the hall in a multitude of colors, but large windows are dangerous in a land attacked by enemies who can fly.

When there’s very little sand in the top part of the hourglass and one window still to be cleaned, a messenger walks in. “Everyone’s expected at the Sky Guard auditorium right now.”