Asenya frowned at the little boy's jest but shook her head slightly.
Beyond the back-and-forth with Auren, something else seemed to hurry her thoughts.
"Do you have something else you'd like to ask?"
Auren smiled.
"Of course. A lot."
He paused and glanced around before meeting her gaze again.
"You wouldn't happen to have water around here, right? After walking through still air for ages, with all my fears weighing on me like a mountain, running from trees that tried to kill me for not crying, and dying horribly countless times at the hands of an empty sheet of metal with a floating heart—I need water. Badly."
Asenya fixed him with an impassive stare, then moved. She walked past him toward her left, beyond the well of black water, and reached the broken, black-stoned dais of the hall.
Near the wall at the left end of the dais stood a water faucet, handsomely fashioned from the onyx wall.
