Bael woke sharply in Kett’s bed, alone. The sheets smelled of her, but the room was empty and dark.
Night had fallen, and the last thing he remembered was crashing into the pantiled roof of Nuala’s house, unable to keep flying or gripping the tattered wagon any longer.
…flesh shrinking, rotting, turning to stone, crumbling…
But she was alive. He could feel her, out there in the city somewhere. His whole body was tuned in to her.
His whole body, which ached in a thousand ways.
He sat up, wincing, and peered through the gloom at the clock on the mantel. Just after eight in the evening-he’d been asleep all day.
For all he knew, he could have been here for weeks.
He stretched-no, definitely not weeks. His body felt as battered and bruised as it had when he’d collided with the roof. Maybe a little worse. What he really needed was to see Kett, wrap her in his arms, kiss her and stroke her and, well, basically shag her rotten. That always made him feel better.
Except the last he’d seen of Kett, she was half-dead and not inclined to even talk to him, let alone touch him.
She fucked another man.
But he still wanted to see her. Needed to see her. To make things right between them, or at least as right as possible.
Slowly, carefully, he picked up the clothes Nuala had given him for Yule and let Var’s wings take him silently-and painfully-from the house. He flew as far as he could manage toward the south of the city, an unknown instinct guiding him toward Kett, then came down in an alley and walked the rest of the way as a human.
The city of Elvyrn was noted for its gentility, and yet Kett seemed to have found the seediest part of it. He found her in a tavern whose sign was so faded and dirty as to be unintelligible, its clientele mostly large tattooed men and weary women in gaudy outfits.
Kett was slumped at a table in the corner, her back to the wall. She saw him come in, turned her head and ignored him.
Bael bit his lip. Well, he hadn’t expected it would be easy.
Her tankard was empty but since Bael was standing at the bar, Kett didn’t want to go over and get a refill. Not just yet. She saw him talk to the grizzled bartender, gesture to her and buy a bottle of the stout she’d been drinking. She figured stout was practically food anyway, so didn’t count as alcohol. At least, that was her excuse if Nuala smelled the fumes on her breath when she got home.
She half wished she’d sat with her back to the room, all the better to ignore him, but years of habit were hard to break. No Knight worth her tattoo would ever turn her back on a bar room.
She lit up a cigar and allowed her gaze to settle on the couple at the next table. The woman was probably Kett’s age but looked ten years older, her skin tired and thin under its layers of powder. Her hair was badly dyed, there was a sore on her lip and her breasts spilled out of her tight, patched-up dress. The sailor on whose lap she was sitting had his hand up her skirt.
The woman was staring into nothingness with such a bleak expression on her face it chilled Kett.
Through the smoke of her cigar she saw a figure approaching. By his scent, by the way he moved and by her body’s total attunement to his, she knew it was Bael.
He poured stout into her tankard without looking at her, without saying a word, then walked on past her into the next room, where she saw him take a cue from the rack by the snooker table.
Kett took a thoughtful pull on her cigar. She watched the doxy at the next table turn and kiss her sailor with plenty of tongue, all the while never losing the desolate expression clouding her eyes.
Kett stood up, steadying herself on the table. The sailor jeered, probably assuming she was drunk. She wasn’t even nearly there. But her leg was paining her as she limped across the stained rushes soaking up beer spills on the floor of the public bar.
She took a cue from the wall and watched Bael rack the balls.
“One drink?” she asked, when he didn’t say anything.
“More if you want.”
His eyes were on the table as he gestured to her to take the first shot. She did, sighting down the cue to the dirty white ball, breaking the neat triangle of reds and pocketing a couple.
“Going to take more than stout, you know.”
“Even Tennison’s Famous Milk Stout?”
Kett potted the black. “Even that.”
He retrieved the black and watched her pocket another red.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
Kett paused before lining up another shot at the black. She potted it, retrieved it, and took aim at the next red without lifting her gaze from the table.
“I didn’t know you were the shapeshifter.”
Kett said nothing.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
She shrugged, which hurt, and bent to the table again. “Why didn’t you tell me you work for the Federación?”
Another silence, while the noise of the pub swirled around them.
“Firstly, I don’t,” Bael said, “and secondly-why would you think I do?”
Kett straightened up and looked Bael in the eye for the first time since he’d walked in. She put down her cue, loosened the neck of her shirt then pulled it off over her head.
The other patrons of the public bar whooped. Bael stared at her upper body, naked but for the plain bra she wore and the stitches in her shoulder. Kett knew she looked like hell, that the recently infected dog bite on her shoulder stood out in livid relief, that her ribs were multicolored, the gash on her hip visible above her low-riding jeans. She knew she was still a little too thin, too pale, too unhealthy-looking.
She wanted Bael to know it too.
She pointed to a faded scar on her side. “Federación did this,” she said, and tapped her upper arm. “And this. And I think there’s one on my leg.”
Bael stared.
“I gave out a few scars too,” she said. “Sliced open one guy’s face. He returned the favor by locking me in a tower. Your tower. And attacking a village. My village. Same man, Bael.”
“I don’t-”
“They kidnapped your king’s sister,” she said, “and several-several people I know.” She still couldn’t tell him about the Order. Not quite yet. “Chance, Striker and I went in after them. A castle in the Bascano Mountains. Euskara.”
“I know where the Bascan- Oh,” Bael said, shock and pain clouding his expression. “I had a house there,” he said, his face ashen.
“The Castillo de la Montaña?” Kett asked, and he nodded, seemingly anguished.
“Albhar told me it had burned down. He said… I had no idea that’s what they were using it for. I swear I didn’t!”
Kett said nothing.
“Listen, they’re my enemies too. They kidnapped the king’s sister, they nearly killed my queen-your cousin!”
No “nearly” about it, Kett thought, but kept that to herself too. “Nice patriotic sentiments from someone who’d never even met another of his species until recently.”
“They’re still my people.” Bael looked aggrieved and Kett grabbed her shirt, pulling it on and ignoring the pain the movement caused.
“No, your people are the ones who killed my people at the dragon ranch,” Kett said viciously, leaning over the table and miscuing so badly she nearly ripped the felt.
“I swear I didn’t know-”
“Didn’t know, Bael? Didn’t know?” She threw the cue at the table. “That doesn’t stop them being dead!”
He flinched, but Kett was on a roll now.
“And what was that you said? About stopping to help me? If you hadn’t stopped, they’d still be alive!” she yelled.
“If I hadn’t stopped, you’d be dead!” Bael yelled back.
“So?” Kett shouted, but couldn’t think of anything to add to it. Bael looked as if he might be about to smile, for which she’d have had to kill him, but he was saved from further attack by Kett’s scryer, which buzzed at her belt. She snatched it up, snarling, “What?” and realizing too late it was probably her father or Nuala, ready to disapprove of her location.