I kept telling myself that too. I had changed. I had meat on me now. My cheeks were no longer hollow caves. I was barely the same person at all. But his eyes had been anchored onto mine, and in that moment I had seen something flicker in his memory. “If he’s here at Tor’s Watch, or at the party tonight, avoid him. And if he says anything, tell him I was a barrow runner for Sanctum Hall. Steer him in that direction. Deny anything else.”
Wren nodded and left. While she was gone, Synové carefully wrapped my leg. Just the pressure of the cloth pressing against the wounds made the throb worse.
“They need sewing, Kazi,” Synové said apologetically. I didn’t answer. Sewing was out of the question. A one inch tear could heal without being sewn up. Her eyes became watery. “I had a dream the night you disappeared. I saw you tumbling in water and you were drowning, but I never saw this. These damn dreams! They’re worthless.” She wiped angrily at her lashes.
I reached out and grabbed her hand. “I did tumble in water, Syn. And I did almost drown. Your dreams were right.”
Her brow shot up. “Was it him who saved you?”
“Yes. More than once. He protected me against a bear, and he carried me across blistering sand. Have you had any other dreams?”
She bit her lip, hesitant. “I dreamed you were chained in a prison cell.”
“That’s not so surprising. I have been before. Sometimes dreams are only dreams, Synové. You were worried about me.”
“But in my dream you were soaked in blood. I wasn’t sure if you were alive.”
“I promise, I have no intention of spending time in a prison cell ever again. It was only a dream.” I hoped.
Wren returned with a tiny vial of crystals. It looked like simple salt. I sniffed skeptically, but there was no scent. She said Mason had intercepted her at the end of a hallway just as I had predicted. He led her to the kitchen and then searched through a storage room for the crystals. He poured some from a large canister into the vial for her. “He called it birchwings and said to mix it with water and drink it to ease pain.”
Synové snorted. “Mason? I should have gone for the medicine.”
“How much do I take?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” Wren answered. “Half of it? Maybe just a spoonful?” Her face twisted with worry. “I’m not sure he said.”
At this point, I didn’t care. I just wanted the pain to stop. Synové poured a quarter of it into a cup of water. The glass shivered in my hand as I downed the flavorless potion. They helped me to the bed and I lay down, my foot elevated on a pillow. Wren smoothed the hair from my face and lay beside me. Synové crawled onto the end of the bed, her hand rubbing my uninjured foot, and she began commenting on the accommodations to fill the silence. I smiled as she assessed the heavy blue drapes that surrounded Jase’s bed. Oh, the stories I bet these could tell …
*
They told me I slept solid for two hours.
When I sat up, my leg was stiff and oddly heavy like it wasn’t my own, but the pain was gone. There was only a mild throb when I swung my foot over the side of the bed and put weight on it. I held up the birchwings vial with supreme admiration. “I’ll be sure to bring this along tonight in case I need more.”
“Nope,” Wren said, snatching it from my hand. “It’s also what knocked you out cold for the last two hours.” I eyed the deceivingly benign vial in Wren’s hand. Powerful crystals like that could be useful. “Unless, of course,” Wren added, “you want that Ballenger boy carrying you back to your room?”
Synové winked. “Of course she does.” She turned, waving to the side. “Look what came while you were out.”
Laid out across the armchair were three dresses.
“The yellow one is mine,” Synové beamed. “I already tried it on. It fits in all the right places—if you know what I mean.”
We knew. Synové had a lot of right places, and she knew it. Everyone always thought she was older than she was.
“I have to applaud Madame Ballenger,” she added, “very perceptive of her in light of the short notice. She barely got a glimpse of me in town. The violet one’s yours.”
That left the one in the middle for Wren. She stared at it like it had gills and claws. “I am not wearing that thing. I don’t even know what color that is.”
“Pink,” I said.
“Like a tongue?”
Synové squinted one eye. “A cold, pale tongue. Wouldn’t you like to feel that on your skin?”
I shot Synové a warning glare. Sometimes I had to use my thieving skills even with my friends and right now something needed to be stolen back—Wren’s confidence. Nothing was going quite as planned, and she demanded that everything follow an ordained path. She liked to be prepared and for a strategy to play out as, well, as planned. She would have made a terrible thief, because being ready to pivot and change the plan in the flutter of an eyelash was what had kept all my fingers intact. Pivot was practically one of my rules. Our plan had gone awry, and this latest misstep, seeing me on the floor of the bath chamber with blood spattering the tiles, had pricked memories that for her would never be shaken. And nowhere in our carefully wrought plan was Wren supposed to attend a party at Tor’s Watch in a pink gown. She was supposed to gather supplies, get me whatever I needed, keep her ziethe sharp and her eyes sharper, and be ready to move when the signal was sent. Now, as she looked at the dress, I knew she was already wondering where her ziethe would go.
But tonight a party was ordered, and it was essential that we appear relaxed, as true guests with nothing to worry about—so the Ballengers would relax too. Not to mention the guests who might be there.
I tested my foot, and when it appeared stable, I crossed the room and touched Wren’s dress. I knew how to entice her. “Oh, this is unexpected,” I said, gathering it up in my hands. I lightly passed the hem over my cheek.
“What?” she asked.
“The fabric. I’m not sure I’ve ever felt anything so soft. It feels like it’s woven from clouds. Feel,” I said, holding it out to her.
She shook her head, refusing, her curls bobbing, but she stepped forward anyway, and gave it a cursory swipe with her fingers.
Wren was sharp, calculating, seeing every move I made, and knowing on some deep level why I made them. Trust me, Wren. As tough as she was, she knew her weaknesses, too—and the things that brought her comfort. I had never known why she was so drawn to soft things, why she was drawn to that fleece in the marketplace that I stole for her, or the downy duckling she had cupped in her hands at a pond and been reluctant to let go. I was sure it was tangled up in something from her past, all of those things that none of us talked about, the secrets that we stuffed down deep in a dark broken part of us. Maybe it was something that even she didn’t understand. It might be something as simple as the memory of her mother’s cheek touching her own.
“It’s soft,” she admitted, still noncommittal, “but that color.”
“The violet one might fit you. We could trade.”
She grabbed the pink dress from me, already knowing all the reasons why she needed to wear it, why she needed to smile and pretend we were there for no other reason than what everyone believed, that we were honored guests of the Ballengers.
“But I’m still wearing my ziethe,” she said.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
JASE
The ambassador’s belly pressed over the low table like a rising loaf of bread, and his buckles, belts, and jeweled chains rattled against it every time he coughed or pulled in a deep, wheezing breath. He inhaled another long pull from his water pipe. The sickeningly sweet tobacco smoke hung in the stale air.
The apartments at the arena that the Ballengers provided—for a price—had been remade in the Candoran style. Heavy tapestries darkened the walls, and fur rugs covered the floors. The shutters were pulled tight and the only light came from a bronze oil lamp glowing on the table between us. The flickering flame cast shadows on his bodyguards standing behind him, enormous men with shimmering sabers hanging at their sides. It was all for effect. Our straza stood behind us for the same reason.
The ambassador’s upper lip twisted in discontent. “You are not your father’s son. He would have met with me last week. He knew—”