Luce's heart sank. The airy feeling disappeared.
She looked at Arriane, who shot her a this-blows sympathy glance but kept working.
"Hey," Luce whispered loudly.
Arriane put a finger to her lips but motioned for Luce to climb up next to her.
With much less grace and agility, Luce grabbed the statue's arm and swung herself up onto the plinth. Once she was fairly certain that she wasn't going to tumble to the ground, she whispered, "So… Daniel's friends with Molly?"
Arriane snorted. "No way, they totally hate each other," she said quickly, then paused. "Why d'you ask?"
Luce pointed at the two of them, doing no work whatsoever to clear brush from their tomb. They were standing close to each other, leaning on their rakes and having a conversation that Luce desperately wished she could hear. "They look like friends to me."
"It's detention," Arriane said flatly. "You have to pair up. Do you think Roland and Chester the Molester are friends?" She pointed at Roland and Cam. They seemed to be arguing about the best way to divvy up their work on the lovers' statue. "Detention buddies does not equal real-life buddies."
Arriane looked back at Luce, who could feel her face falling, despite her best efforts to appear unfazed.
"Look, Luce, I didn't mean…" She trailed off. "Okay, aside from the fact that you made me waste a good twenty minutes of my morning, I have no problem with you. In fact, I think you're sort of interesting. Kinda fresh. That said, I don't know what you were expecting in terms of mushy-gushy friendship here at Sword & Cross. But let me be the first to tell you, it just ain't that easy. People are here because they've got baggage. I'm talking curbside-check-in, pay-the-fine-'cause-it's-over-fifty-pounds kind of baggage. Get it?"
Luce shrugged, feeling embarrassed. "It was just a question."
Arriane snickered. "Are you always so defensive? What the hell did you do to get in here, anyway?"
Luce didn't feel like talking about it. Maybe Arriane was right, she'd be better off not trying to make friends. She hopped down and went back to attacking the moss at the base of the statue.
Unfortunately, Arriane was intrigued. She hopped down, too, and brought her rake down on top of Luce's to pin it in place.
"Ooh, tell me tell me tell me," she taunted.
Arriane's face was so close to Luce's. It reminded Luce of yesterday, crouching over Arriane after she'd convulsed. They'd had a moment, hadn't they? And part of Luce badly wanted to be able to talk to someone. It had been such a long, stifling summer with her parents. She sighed, resting her forehead on the handle of her rake.
A salty, nervous taste filled her mouth, but she couldn't swallow it away. The last time she'd gone into these details, it had been because of a court order. She would just as soon have forgotten them, but the longer Arriane stared her down, the clearer the words grew, and the closer they came to the tip of her tongue.
"I was with a friend one night," she started to explain, taking a long, deep breath. "And something terrible happened." She closed her eyes, praying that the scene wouldn't play out in a burst under the red-black of her eyelids. "There was a fire. I made it out… and he didn't."
Arriane yawned, much less horrified by the story than Luce was.
"Anyway," Luce went on, "afterwards, I couldn't remember the details, how it happened. What I could remember—what I told the judge, anyway—I guess they thought I was crazy." She tried to smile, but it felt forced.
To Luce's surprise, Arriane squeezed her shoulder. And for a second, her face looked really sincere. Then it changed back into its smirk.
"We're all so misunderstood, aren't we?" She poked Luce in the gut with her finger. "You know, Roland and I were just talking about how we don't have any pyromaniac friends. And everyone knows you need a good pyro to pull off any reform school prank worth the effort." She was scheming already. "Roland thought maybe that other new kid, Todd, but I'd rather cast my lot with you. We should all collaborate sometime."
Luce swallowed hard. She wasn't a pyro. But she was done talking about her past; she didn't even feel like defending herself.
"Ooh, wait until Roland hears," Arriane said, throwing down her rake. "You're like our dream come true."
Luce opened her mouth to protest, but Arriane had already taken off. Perfect, Luce thought, listening to the sound of Arriane's shoes squishing through the mud. Now it was only a matter of minutes before word traveled around the cemetery to Daniel.
Alone again, she looked up at the statue. Even though she'd already cleared a huge pile of moss and mulch, the angel looked dirtier than ever. The whole project felt so pointless. She doubted anyone ever came to visit this place anyway. She also doubted that any of the other detainees were still working.