Page 61 - DivineSparkRising II-TheMirrorofSilenceFinal

Nicholas Boothman
The woman tilted her head, listening for a chord
that wasn’t there. Her mirrored palm lowered a
fraction.
“Now,” Carolina said, and they sprinted across
traffic, horns alive, tires skidding, drivers making
the kind of noise that keeps arteries clear.
The woman didn’t follow. She just turned and
watched them go with a face that meant nothing.
Henry only realized he was laughing when he
heard it. He sounded like himself. He liked that too
much.
3. Passage
They bought tickets with cash and boarded the
southbound ferry at Cais do Sodré. The Tagus
looked like hammered pewter, beaten and beaten
and refusing to flatten.
On the deck, Carolina clutched the railing and
let the wind take the heat from her face. “Tangier,”
she said, as if saying a city out loud turned it into a
destination instead of a story.
Henry nodded. “Zhara. Wireless Voices.”
A toddler two benches up started to cry. Not a
silence field—just human exhaustion. The mother
bounced and soothed and failed. Without thinking,
Carolina hummed three notes, then the pause, then
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