Page 277 of Phoenix's Fire

"So we figure it out," I told him. "We start thinking about this, and stop waiting to be told how to save ourselves. I always thought it was just me and Callah, but now she's worried about the other women..." I paused, almost stopping there, but then deciding I had nothing to lose. "I'm worried about you now."

"Yeah?" he asked.

"I like having friends," I admitted. "It sounds stupid to say it aloud like that, but it's still true."

"I like having you as a friend," he said. "I hope that when you marry Callah, you won't forget we're actually friends."

"They don't let friends work together," I pointed out. "They want you to shoot me if I try to run, and for me to shoot you."

"So we prove ourselves," he suggested. "You saved me. You fought off the dog - "

"Beast," I corrected. "We're not supposed to know it's called a dog."

"Right. But you still defeated the beast with your bare hands last time, and the other one tore people down."

"Yep," I said.

"So you're a useful idiot," he decided. "I'll be a loyal man with aspirations of becoming an elder one day. I'll make it clear I can use you, and that I want to make sure your wife is truly as proper and pious as you say."

"And you're really going to help me?" I asked.

"Yeah," he said softly. "I always thought I'd die out here, and I kinda liked that. I thought it might be better than down there, you know?"

"Yeah."

"But," he said, "I'd prefer to live. From what, uh,shewas saying, it sounds like I could have choices up here."

"Mhm," I agreed.

"So what will you do when you're no longer trapped with the Righteous?"

I felt my lips curling and I glanced away. "Don't laugh, okay?"

"Promise."

"I want to learn how to cook food and sew clothes."

"Like a woman?"

"Yeah, I dunno, maybe?" I shrugged, knowing it was a stupid thing to want. "I just want to learn. I might hate it, but what I hate more is that I can't even try. Girls get to turn nothing into something, and we just turn something into nothing."

"I like that," he said. "I want to paint."

"Paint?" I asked, thinking about the walls or tables that had been repaired.

"Like the pictures from sermon," he explained. "The ones that show what we see, or feel. My mother used to draw, making designs she'd embroider on our clothes. I always thought it was impressive. I can't make things like she did. She just made these lines, and then it was something else. I want to do that, but with all the colors of the world."

"Yeah," I agreed. "That's a good one. I bet you'd be a good painter, Sylis."

"I bet I'd be horrible," he countered. "But it would be nice to try. I just think the Wyvern might have a point. The Devil is winning, but not up here. He has taken control of the compound instead. We aren't Righteous, Tobias. We're a plague."

"But we don't have to stay that way," I reminded him. "We just have to make sure we don't get caught."

"And the more people you have helping, the more options you have," he said.

I grunted at that. "Callah calls it a rebellion."

"I like rebellion," Sylis agreed. "I'm also scared to death, because if this doesn't work..."