Cerise dug through her backpack, fished out a sweat-shirt, and pulled it on. He’d made himself back down. Point for him, but no need to tempt fate.
The rush of adrenaline inside her cooled down. Warmth washed over her, followed by soft fatigue. What do you know—Lord Bill almost lost his head over a Mire girl. She grinned. Hobo queen, shmobo queen, took you by surprise. “Lost his head” didn’t even begin to cover it. He’d stared at her like he was some sort of maniac.
It shouldn’t have mattered. For all she knew, William looked at every woman that way. Well, maybe not quite that way, since he did manage to make it to adulthood somehow, without being murdered.
Still, it did matter. She sensed a sharp, dangerous edge to everything he did, and it pulled her in like a moth to a flame. She thought back to the fight. He’d pushed her out of the way. It wasn’t a hard push, but she had been barely standing and she fell badly, flat on her back, the wind knocked out of her. For about half a minute, she lay there, woozy, trying to get up, and listening to William drawing the Hand’s freak farther away.
He’d knocked her down with the best intentions, true, but she should’ve punched him harder for it. It’s good that nobody had been there to witness it, or she would be the laughing stock of the entire Mire. Cerise grimaced. She’d really wanted to hammer one right to his jaw, but hitting someone in the jaw all but guaranteed a sore hand. That was one of the first lessons her grandmother had taught her: Take care of your hands. You need them to hold your blade.
When she had finally staggered upright, that brown monstrosity was almost fifty yards away. It was huge and armored and armed with claws. And William had gone after it with a knife. She would’ve said he was insane or stupid, except by the time she got there, the Hand’s freak was bleeding like a stuck pig. She’d almost slipped on the trail of his blood. A few more minutes and William would’ve bled him dry.
The water in the shower stopped.
Cerise took off down the hallway before William stepped out and caught her staring at the door.
A pantry lay to the left. She sorted through the cans, looking for something with meat in it.
Cerise was pretty, she knew that. In the Mire, who she was and what she could do were always taken into account. She was Cerise Mar. She had the Rats at her back and her sword was famous. Her family wasn’t exactly prime in-law material and some men had a problem with how well she handled her blade, but still there were enough guys out there who would work their asses off for a chance to be with her. If she wanted to, she could have her pick, and she did, for a while, until she got bogged down in fixing the family finances.
Knowing you were poor was one thing. But living with that knowledge, having it rubbed in your face again and again, being forced to hustle, scheme, and finagle so you could buy the kids new clothes for the winter or post bail for a relative, that was another thing. It drained her will to live.
And then there was Tobias. He turned out to be a piece of work.
Now if a man came on to her, the first thing that went through her mind was what did he really want? Was he after her or after the family’s money, what little there was of it? Was he trustworthy? How badly could he screw up, and how much would it cost the family if they had to make the issue go away? That one drank too much, this one had a kid from the first marriage that he wanted to see well taken care of by someone else, the third one humped anything that moved . . . Too reckless, too stupid, too quick to anger . . . Soon she got a reputation for being choosy, and she didn’t think she was. And even if she was, she couldn’t afford not to be.
But William didn’t know any of that. He didn’t know the first thing about her and didn’t give a damn about her family. She blindsided him and got an honest reaction.
Cerise recalled the look in his eyes and shivered.
The question was, what would she do when he came out of the shower? The thought stopped her in her tracks. He had to be in good shape. He was strong like an ox—dragging the punt through the swamp singlehanded was no picnic, and he’d picked her and the bags up and run, as if their combined weight were nothing. Her imagination tried to paint a picture of William coming out of the shower and toweling off, and she slammed the door on that thought real fast. It was fine if he was smitten. But she had other things to worry about.
A part of her really wanted to find out if his reaction was just a one-time thing or if she could get him to look at her that way again.
Cerise swiped two cans of beef stew off the shelf and headed back to the kitchen. Doesn’t matter, she told herself. You’re not fifteen. Put it out of your mind. You have parents to rescue.
In a few minutes he’d step out of the shower, and she had to treat him like a potential enemy, no matter what he looked like. Safer that way.
Lord Bill was an enigma. He dressed like a blueblood, he talked like a blueblood, but he came to the Mire through the Broken. Nobles from the Weird usually couldn’t enter the Broken. They were too full of magic, and they had to turn back or ended up dying. Either he was a dud magically or there was something very funky going on with his bloodline. Then there were the eyes full of fire. And now this.
He knew of the Hand. She had to make use of that. She could always kill him if he stepped out of line.
The stove had a fancy glass top. Cerise turned it on, waited until one of the burners glowed red, set a pot on it, and dumped the stew into it. Blueblood or not, she would figure Lord Bill out sooner or later. Or they would go their separate ways and the problem would solve itself.
The door opened.
It was curiosity, Cerise decided. Just normal healthy curiosity. She pretended to be occupied with the stew.
She could just look up at him and glance away . . . Oh, Gods.