“I’m serious,” insisted the prince, his words slurring slightly.
He knew Rhy was, but he also knew it would never happen. The crown didn’t let Kell travel beyond London, even when he ventured to different worlds. They claimed it was for his own safety—and maybe it was—but he and Rhy both knew that wasn’t the only reason.
“I’ll talk to Father….” said Rhy, trailing off as if the subject were already fading from his mind. And then he was up again, sliding out of the booth.
“Where are you going?” asked Kell.
“To fetch us another round.”
Kell looked down at Rhy’s discarded glass, and then his own, still half-full.
“I think we’ve had enough,” said Kell. The prince spun on him, clutching the booth.
“So now you speak for both of us?” he snapped, eyes glassy. “First body, now will?”
The barb struck, and Kell felt suddenly, horribly tired. “Fine,” he growled. “Poison us both.”
He rubbed his eyes and watched his brother go. Rhy had always had a penchant for consumption, but never with the sole intent of being too drunk to be useful. Too drunk to think. Saints knew, Kell had demons of his own, but he knew he couldn’t drown them. Not like this. Why he kept letting Rhy try, he didn’t know.
Kell felt in the pockets of his coat and found a brass clip with three slim cigars.
He’d never been much of a smoker—then again, he’d never been much of a drinker, either—and yet, wanting to take back at least a measure of control over what he put in his body, he snapped his fingers and lit the cigar with the small flame that danced above his thumb.
Kell inhaled deeply—it wasn’t tobacco, like in Grey London, or the horrible char they smoked in White, but a pleasant spiced leaf that cleared his head and calmed his nerves. Kell blew the breath out, his eyes sliding out of focus in the plume of smoke.
He heard steps and looked up, expecting Rhy, only to find a young woman. She bore the marks of Kisimyr’s entourage, from the coiled dark hair to the gold tassels to the cat’s-eye pendant at her throat.
“Avan,” she said, with a voice like silk.
“Avan,” said Kell.
The woman stepped forward, the knees of her dress brushing the edge of the booth. “Mistress Vasrin sends her regards, and wishes me to pass on a message.”
“And what message is that?” he asked, taking another drag.
She smiled, and then before he could do anything—before he could even exhale—she reached out, took Kell’s face in her hand, and kissed him. The breath caught in Kell’s chest, heat flushed his body, and when the girl pulled back—not far, just enough to meet his gaze—she blew out a breath of smoke. He almost laughed. Her lips curled into a feline smile, and her eyes searched his, not with fear or even surprise, but with something like excitement. Awe. And Kell knew this was the part where he should feel like an impostor … but he didn’t.
He looked past her to the prince, still standing at the bar.
“Was that all she said?” asked Kell.
Her mouth twitched. “Her instructions were vague, mas aven vares.”
My blessed prince.
“No,” he said, frowning. “Not a prince.”
“What, then?”
He swallowed. “Just Kell.”
She blushed. It was too intimate—societal norms dictated that even if he shed the royal title, he should be addressed as Master Kell. But he didn’t want to be that, either. He just wanted to be himself.
“Kell,” she said, testing the word on her lips.
“And your name?” he asked.
“Asana,” she whispered, the word escaping like a sound of pleasure. She guided him back against the bench, the gesture somehow forward and shy at the same time. And then her mouth was upon his. Her clothes were cinched at the waist in the current fashion, and he tangled his fingers in the bodice lacings at the small of her back.
“Kell,” someone whispered in his ear.
Only it wasn’t Asana, but Delilah Bard. She did that, crept into his thoughts and robbed him of focus, like a thief. Which was exactly what she was. What she’d been, before he let her out of her world, and into his. Saints knew what—or where—she was these days, but in his mind she would always be the thief, stealing through at the most inopportune moments. Get out, he thought, his grip tightening on the girl’s dress. Asana kissed him again, but he was being dragged somewhere else, outside, on the path in the cool October night, and another set of lips was pressing against his, there and then gone, a ghost of a kiss.
“What was that for?”
A knife’s edge smile. “For luck.”
He groaned in frustration, and pulled Asana against him, kissing her deeply, desperately, trying to smother Lila’s intrusion as Asana’s lips brushed his throat.