“To ask. Although I have usually done so before that!”
I remembered that he’d introduced himself to me, the first time we met here, despite it being in a somewhat . . . compromising . . . situation. He hadn’t gotten my real name then, but he’d been persistent. Because he’d want any child of his to know who he was, where he’d come from, what he was. Instead of growing up never knowing anything, like he had done.
And, okay, right then I genuinely hated Rosier.
“Hold on!” Pritkin said, a hand on his fake hair, and I realized that I’d been combing a little too hard. Like enough to pull out a small patch of fur, or whatever the matted thing was made of.
I frowned at the comb. Even when wearing a wig, Pritkin had terrible hair. It was like he was cursed.
“Your turn,” he said, and for a moment, I didn’t know what he meant.
“You said it would be difficult?” he prompted.
I winced.
But he’d just told me something uncomfortable, and very personal, so . . .
“It’s hard to explain,” I repeated. “You don’t know him.”
“Ah. A rival.” He looked like he’d just figured something out. “Do you love him?”
“That’s a strange question.” I went back to work, trying to cover the bald spot.
“And an easy one. If you’re together, of course you love him.”
“I . . . yes. Of course.”
“That doesn’t sound very sure.”
“I’m sure.”
“It’s just that you hesitated.”
“I did not!”
“All right.”
I combed fur for a moment. “It just . . . for a long time, there were so many things I didn’t know about him. We didn’t talk much, and when we did, it never seemed to be about anything. We’d have these conversations, but later, I couldn’t remember us actually saying anything. And then, when he finally did . . .”
“When he did?”
I put the comb down and picked up a pot of something I’d noticed when I was doing my own makeup. “What is this?”
“Putty. They use it to make bruises and scars, and to change the shape of facial features. Harder than wearing a mask, but it lets the audience see the eyes.”
“Hold still,” I told him, and slathered some on his most memorable feature.
“You have to move quickly, or it will set up,” Pritkin said, sounding slightly worried. And slightly nasal.
“I know how to do makeup,” I said, but sped up a little. I had a lot of ground to cover.
“This man, he is older than you?” he asked, after a minute.
I snorted. “You could say that.”
“What’s so funny? Is he . . . very old?” Pritkin frowned.
“Let’s just say that, in age, experience, and knowledge, he pretty much outclasses me. Or maybe I just don’t know what I’m doing. He’s my first relationship, and I don’t think I’m doing it right. Sometimes I wonder what he’s even doing with me. And then . . .” I swallowed and looked away, putting the little pot back in place as an excuse.
“And then?”
“And then sometimes I think I know,” I said shortly.
“That does sound complicated.”
“It is.”
“Too complicated, for a first relationship.”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“First relationships are supposed to be easy. Simple. Fun.”
“Fun.”
“Yes, fun.” He tilted his head, which made his fake nose go all wonky. He waggled it back and forth, until it resembled a lying Pinocchio’s. I sighed and pulled it off. “Don’t you like to have fun?”
“Yes, but that’s . . . Relationships are supposed to be serious.”
“Why?”
“Why? Because you’re talking about spending your life with someone!”
“Someone who’s not any fun.”
“He’s fun!”
“You sound defensive.”
“I’m not,” I said, and grabbed a rag to remove the rest of the nose. “He’s fun when he has time to be. It’s just . . . he’s busy. So am I.”
Pritkin pursed his lips at me. “This relationship of yours sounds like a lot of work. I’m glad I’m not so busy. Or so complicated.”
“You’re plenty complicated!”
“Not at all. When I’m hungry, I eat. When I’m tired, I sleep. When I see a pretty girl, looking at me with eyes as dark as the ocean, with hunger in them, so much hunger . . . I oblige.”
I stared down into burning green eyes for a moment, and then looked away again.
“That’s because you’re . . .” An incubus, I didn’t say, because there was a possibility he didn’t know yet. “Young.”
“Yes. So are you.”
Yeah, right. “I don’t feel like it much lately.”
“Then feel like it now.” He saw my expression, and laughed. “Not like that. Well, unless you change your mind. But there’s other ways to have fun, you know.”
“Like what?”
“Like this.” And he pushed open the back door with his foot.
I looked at him with alarm. “What are you doing?”
We were still moving, which didn’t stop him from catching hold of the roof and somehow vaulting up on top. And then reaching down, when I peered out the back, and grasping my arms. “This,” he said, grinning.
“Um,” I said, because the ground was suddenly looking very hard.
And very far, when he pulled me up in one fell swoop, like flying. Depositing me beside a fat guy with a tambourine and maybe three teeth. All of which he bared at me in a lopsided grin. Pritkin rapid-fired some introductions, and then plopped a straw hat down on my head, probably because the gate was coming up.
There were people lining the road on both sides, and running to catch up, like it was Mardi Gras and we were the only float. The girls laughed and waved, some guy went to town on a lyre, and in a minute, the craziness had infected me, and I was laughing, too. And trying to hold on to my hat, before the wind sent it flying.
Pritkin snatched it out of the air and put it back in place, green eyes gleaming.
“If he gets you, I get this much,” he said, and kissed me while the girls laughed and flashed the guards, and the tambourine shook, and the wagon trundled through the gate, unopposed.
And that was how we entered the city.
Chapter Fifty
The players were housed in tiny plain rooms off the kitchen, which seemed to make everybody happy.
“Used to sleeping under the stars, or with his foot in m’face,” one of the girls told me, hiking a thumb at the tambourine guy. “This is luxury.”
“Don’t get too comfortable,” the lyre player, a tall man with sharp cheekbones, said. “Dinner’s at sundown. Then we’re up.” He looked at Pritkin. “Why don’t you start taking everything to the main hall?”
I guessed that was for the benefit of the kitchen staff, despite the fact that none of them seemed to be paying us any attention. Until a frazzled girl came over, with sweat on her brow, and handed me a wooden tray. “Take this up if you’re going.”
“You take it,” the cook said, bending over a pot on the fire. “Don’t be giving your tasks to those who have their own.”
“But she’s going anyway—”
“And doubtless will be carrying her work with her.”