“I’m a complicated person.”
He let go, carefully, and I tucked my hand over his forearm, the two of us pulling close together. We headed down the endless-seeming steps from the academy to the city below.
“How is your sister doing after being taken by Alis and Henrick?”
He was the first person who had thought to ask how Hanna had been hurt by what had happened with our stepmother. And it made me melt a little. Cal seemed more in touch with his feelings than most men, perhaps because he dealt with so many painful ones. “I’ve tried to tell her that it’s not her fault, but I think it’s hard for her to believe.”
“I guess all you can do is keep telling her.”
“I guess so,” I agreed.
When we arrived at the Twisted Pines, the windows were brightly lit from within casting a warm, welcoming glow into the street. Fiddle music, lively and cheerful seemed to leak from under the eaves.
“This place always makes me feel happy,” Caldren mused. “Happier than that big lonely castle ever did.”
I squeezed his arm back. I was glad he’d made himself a home that suited him better.
“What kind of villains and scum and rebels am I going to meet tonight? You know I’d be delighted to meet more of my kind,” I added before he could be hurt by my description of the company he kept.
He flashed a grin back at me. “I do have some dear friends I’d really like you to meet.”
“Are you sure you want to seem less interesting by comparison to me?”
“I think I’ll be okay. I think you can only enhance my reputation.”
“Ha.” I scoffed, but he was already opening the door for me and leading me inside.
The Twisted Pines was close, and crowded, cozy and warm. The tables were a little too close together, because there was a fiddler playing music and couples whirling around on the dance floor. It seemed as if the dancer’s wild limbs and reeling would whack them into the servers, but the servers were so adept that they slipped past, raising mugs and meals out of the fray.
And just like always, as soon as Caldren walked in, some folks cleared from a table for us. Caldren guided me to the seat by the fire without seeming surprised by such an intense gesture of respect.
I settled into the seat opposite him. The warmth of the fire was welcome after the cool, rainy night outside. “People really seem to like you here.”
“Finally, someplace where people see me as I truly am.”
“But why do they show you that kind of deference? Who are you really, Cal?”
“Who are you really, Honor Hanaby?”
I couldn’t use his full name against him; he wasn’t a Deragon anymore, and I wasn’t sure he called himself by any new last name. “I’ll tell you if I ever figure it out.”
He glanced around, then said, “Of course, my friends are late, they’re always late.”
But it wasn’t long before the doors swung open, and in swaggered a tall guy who looked like a pirate. His arm was slung around the neck of a tall brunette girl with a beautiful face full of freckles. The two of them could fit through the doorway together, but after them came an enormous man around Cal’s age with wild red hair, and he filled the whole doorway. He had to stoop to get his head through.
“What kind of shifter is he?” I asked in curiosity. My royals were big, but he was one of the biggest men I’d ever seen.
“Rabbit,” Cal said, and in response to my shocked look, he added, “yeah, I know, don’t bring it up, it’s a sore subject.”
“I wouldn’t want to piss him off.”
The girl must have sharp ears because as we reach the table, she said, “Don’t worry about it. He’s a bunny rabbit.”
The redhead narrowed his eyes at her. The three of them took seats at the table.
Nora sat next to Cal, a little too close to Cal, if you asked me, even with five at a four top table. It was just something I noticed, but it didn’t necessarily mean anything. And I certainly didn’t care.
“These are my friends,” Cal said warmly, “Nora, Morick and Bryden. This is Honor.”
“It’s so nice to meet you, Honor. I’ve heard all about you,” Bryden said, shaking my hand.
“I am so glad to meet you too. How do you all know each other?” I asked.
Morick cocked his head. “Can’t you guess?” I looked at the hat he was wearing, the traces of dried salt on his cuffs that had left white stains, and decided that he was definitely a pirate, or at least he wanted to be a pirate very badly and was playing dress up like a child.
“Are you a pirate?” I asked my own question instead of answering his.
“Of course not. Ever since the Scourge began we aren’t allowed to take to the seas, except to move items from one part of our coastline to another. No one is allowed to leave.” He rattled it all off as if he knew the law very well. Then he stopped and gave me a wink.
I didn’t get the feeling he cared about the law that much after all.
As the night wore on, I enjoyed the banter between all of them the same way I enjoyed the banter between Jaik’s friends. Jaik and Cal might think they were so different, but they both seem to draw incredibly gifted, loyal people around them quite readily.
“Come dance with me,” Caldren said suddenly.
I pulled a face. “I’m a terrible dancer.”
“So? I’ll step on your toes if you’ll step on mine.”
Caldren caught my hands and the two of us joined the crowd reeling around the dance floor. His arm slipped around my lower back, holding me tight. He smelled like spices and hops and pine, a pleasant, homey kind of scent. He spun me out, and I grinned as I ducked under his arm.
“You’re not as terrible as I expected,” Caldren said.
“I’m pretty sure I already broke one of your toes.”
“Just one?” He smiled down at me. “It’s all right. I’d take ten broken toes for the chance to dance with you.”
I grinned in response to his ridiculous sweetness. The two of us were whirling around the room in time with the music too quickly for me to be sure, but someone at the edge of the room raised a hand in what might’ve been a gesture to Caldren. His face immediately dimmed.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Nothing. But the aftertaste of that cheap booze is killing me. I’m going to see if I can get some of the good stuff.” He was lying, I knew that, but he lied so easily that it worried me. “I’ll be back in a minute. Stay out of trouble?”
I nodded, but some of the warmth I’d felt between us cooled at the lie. Maybe he had to lie in public, and he wouldn’t have if it were just the two of us. Still, that didn’t change how it hurt my feelings.
I made my way back to the table. Morick and Bryden had disappeared, their glasses still sitting on the table. Nora sat at the table though, tilted back in her chair with her boots on the table, draining the last of her tankard.
Nora looked up at me and said, “I hope you won’t hurt him.”