“Who’s Emel?”
“My cousin. The Red Necromancer. That’s why I will have to pay restitution. The eel knows me by scent. It wouldn’t have attacked me if I were on my own, so if you weren’t with me, I wouldn’t be in this mess.”
He would strangle her before this trip was over. “Should I just let the fish eat me next time?”
“It would certainly make things easier.”
William scraped the last of his patience together and tried to pretend to be Declan. “I’ll pay you for the fish.”
“Yes, yes, and that flock of pigs crossing the sky looks particularly lovely this time of day.”
He lost it and snarled. “I said I’ll pay for the damn fish if we have to kill it!”
She waved her hands in the air. “Do me a huge favor, Lord William. Keep your thoughts to yourself for the next few miles. If you keep talking, I’ll have to hit you with this pole, and nobody wants that.”
THE stream turned, spilling back into the river. Cerise leaned onto the pole, and the boat slipped into the wider water.
At this rate they’d reach Broken Neck by nightfall. She had no desire to chance crossing the labyrinth of peat islands and sunken cypresses in the middle of the night, not with the damn eel following them. They’d have to find a secure spot to camp. Maybe they would avoid Broken Neck altogether. Take one of the offshoot streams. It would be safer but slower. And her time was in short supply. More so because of the idiot blueblood.
You stole my kill. Ha.
Cerise glanced at him. Lord William had taken his crossbow out. His amber eyes scanned the water. There was something deeply predatory in the way he sat, silent and alert. Like a cat waiting to sink his claws into living flesh.
Cerise thought of the eel and William, stuck in the mud, only a knife in his hand. Most people would’ve panicked. He just waited for the fish to charge him. His eyes were predatory back then, too. Calculating, hot amber eyes, full of outrage, as if he was insulted the eel had attacked him.
She’d seen her share of exiles from the Weird. Once in a while, Louisiana would send a blueblood into the Edge. Some of them were powerful, some were desperate, but none were like William. She wanted to pry him open and figure out what he was made of. Why was he here in the Mire? What did he want?
He was only a blueblood, Cerise reminded herself. She would dump him in Sicktree. She had bigger things to worry about. She just liked looking at him, because he happened to have a handsome face and because with the two of them alone in the entire swamp, there wasn’t anything else to look at.
“Looking for the eel?” Cerise asked.
He glanced at her and Cerise almost dropped the pole. His eyes luminesced like the irises of a wild cat hidden in darkness.
Holy crap.
Cerise blinked. William’s eyes were back to their normal hazel. She could’ve sworn she’d seen them glow.
What the hell did she get herself into?
“I’m going to kill that damn fish,” William growled.
Oh, for Gods’ sake. “Crazy necromancers, anal cousin, financial liability, did any of that penetrate?”
“That fish is everything that’s wrong with this place.”
“And what, pray tell, is wrong with the Mire?” Cerise could write a book about what was wrong with the Mire, but she’d earned that right by being born and bred here.
He grimaced. “It’s sweltering and damp. It smells of rotting vegetation, and fish, and stagnant water. It shifts constantly. Nothing is what it seems: the solid ground is mud and the fish have legs. It’s not a proper place.”
Cerise smirked. “It’s old. The Mire was ancient before our ancestors were born. It’s a piece of another time, when plants ruled and animals were savage. Respect it, Lord William, or it will kill you.”
His upper lip rose, revealing his teeth. She’d seen this precise look on her dogs just before they snarled. “It’s welcome to try.”
Ready to take the swamp on, was he? Cerise laughed. He glared. She was dying to know what his prissy behind was doing in the Edge, but she’d made the rule about personal questions and she had to stick to it.
“So what’s a proper place?”
“A forest,” William said, his expression distant. “Where the ground is dry soil and stone. Where tall trees grow and centuries of autumn carpet their roots. Where the wind smells of game and wildflowers.”
“Why, that was lovely, Lord Bill. Do you ever write poetry? Something for your blueblood lady?”
“No.”
“She doesn’t like poetry?”
“Leave it.”
Hehe. “Oh, so you don’t have a lady. How interes—”
Magic prickled her skin. Her hands went ice-cold. A shiver gripped her. Her teeth chattered, her knees shook, and the tiny hairs on the back of her neck stood on their ends. Fear washed over her followed by a quick squirm of nausea.
Something bad waited for them around the river bend.
A familiar revulsion clamped William’s throat and squeezed. His stomach lurched. Invisible magic sparked off his skin.
The Hand. Strong magic, coming fast. Ahead the river bent to the left. Someone from Spider’s crew had to be just around the turn. Could be one man or could be fifteen. No way to tell.
Cerise froze at the stern. Her body trembled.
“Hide,” he said. “Now.”
She maneuvered the boat into the clump of reeds, sank the pole into the river’s bottom, and crouched, keeping them put. He pulled a white coin from his pocket, locked his arms around her, and squeezed the metal. Here’s hoping the Mirror’s gadgets work.
The coin grew hot in his fingers. A faint sheen of magic flowed from his hand, dripping onto Cerise’s arm, over her jacket and jeans, over his arms, swallowing the whole boat.
Cerise tensed. Her hands gripped the pole, until her knuckles went completely white. The pupils in her irises grew into dark pools.