“I don’t know. I’m good at bargaining, sums, and baking,” Ari said. And snooping. There were definite advantages to having been raised by a servant mother who’d taught her how to move unseen through the palace so as not to disturb the royal family.
She took two more swallows of tea and looked out the window again. The sun danced over the water, golden diamonds glittering against the sea, and thick, pillowy clouds wandered across the sky. Her throat closed on tears that she refused to shed in front of Maarit. She wanted to go home. She wanted to see Cleo and eat Mama Eleni’s raspberry scones. She wanted to see if Thad was recovering from his head wound.
She wanted Sebastian.
Stars, how she wanted Sebastian. She wanted his quiet strength and his confidence that she could do anything she set her mind to. She wanted his crinkle-eyed smile and the deep stillness of his body when he mentioned his past. Missing him was a bittersweet ache that sank into her bones like it never meant to leave.
“Thinking of running away?” There was a tiny spark of curiosity in Maarit’s voice for the first time. “You wouldn’t be the first.”
Ari turned away from the window, surprised that the movement didn’t hurt as much as it had a moment ago. “I don’t run from my promises.”
Especially when she was one word away from having her soul ripped out of her body. She’d always been a loyalty-or-death kind of girl, but this was taking it to an extreme.
There was a glimmer of approval in Maarit’s eyes as she said, “Finish your tea. You’ll feel better soon.”
Ari took the last swallow of tea and then blinked. The room grew blurry at the edges and spun in slow, sickening circles. She had the unsettling sensation that the walls were breathing—in and out, a slow gentle rhythm that sent a chill skittering down Ari’s spine.
Setting the cup down, she rubbed her eyes, but nothing changed.
“What’s in this tea?” she asked, her tongue feeling too clumsy to properly form the words.
“Little bit of fae herbs blessed with magic. Good for knitting broken bones and cleansing the body of bruises.” Maarit lifted the cup out of her hands, and Ari caught a whiff of something that smelled of wild, overgrown forests and dark, loamy soil.
Teague had smelled like that. Or maybe it was the open vial he’d held. It was unsettling to think that she’d just ingested something that smelled like the man she desperately wanted to destroy.
She tried to sit up straighter, but it was hard to feel her legs. The walls seemed to breathe a little faster.
“Back to bed,” Maarit said as she wrapped a wiry arm around the princess’s back. She was stronger than she looked, and Ari leaned heavily on her as they made their way back to the bed.
Once Ari was settled, Maarit said, “When you wake, all will be healed. You have clothes in the wardrobe. The boss will meet you in the library on the main floor. You may go in any room on that floor except his study, and you are never to go to the third floor. That’s the boss’s private living quarters. I take care of it for him.”
Ari tried to nod, but the bed was soft and welcoming, and little dancing lights were frolicking at the edge of her vision. She drew in a deep, pain-free breath, closed her eyes, and heard the walls sigh.
Distantly, she was aware of Maarit taking the tray of uneaten food from the room, leaving Ari to listen to the sea and wish for Sebastian as she slowly fell into a deep sleep.
TWENTY-SIX
THE CRUSHING NOOSE of fear that had wrapped around Sebastian refused to ease. He’d followed Teague’s carriage to a sprawling, gated villa on the southern edge of the wealthy side of Kosim Thalas, and then had made his way to the streets he used to call home. He’d sold the horse to the liveryman—probably for half of what it was truly worth, but he was still flush with coin because of it. And then he’d entered east Kosim Thalas, heading for his mother’s building, weapon out, coin hidden, wearing the rage he usually kept locked away on his face for all the world to see.
He was going to need it if he wanted to help the princess.
He’d have to be ruthless. Lethal. Unflinching.
He’d have to be like his father.
Before that thought could eat away at him, he shrugged into his coat and got to his feet as the sun blazed through the morning fog and the streets came to life. The princess needed him. It was time to get started.
A haze of pipe weed hung over the streets and the stench of rotten garbage baked beneath the morning sun. Apodrasi users dotted the street corners, their bodies thin, their eyes desperate as they begged for money to buy their next dose. A crowd had already gathered in front of the building as Sebastian stepped away from the front door.
“Look who got thrown back where he belongs.”
“Still think you’re better than us?”
“Gone soft now, look at him. We could take him.”
The calls followed Sebastian as he left his mother’s building.
Last night he’d made sure that the runners and plenty of others made note of his arrival. He’d taken his time walking to his mother’s place and had informed one of the children who was clinging to the doorstep of the building to spread the word that Sebastian Vaughn was looking for a job. And then he’d gone upstairs and slept against the wall outside his mother’s door. When he’d left after Parrish’s burial, he’d promised himself he’d never spend another night in that apartment again.
It was a promise he planned on keeping.
Judging by the crowd waiting for him on the street, everyone knew that Sebastian had moved back. It wouldn’t be long before a runner would come looking for him, sent by a street boss who would expect Sebastian to take whatever job he planned to offer.
His face grim, Sebastian faced the crowd of onlookers. Which-ever street boss took the bait first was going to regret it.
The youths surrounding him fell silent as he stared them down one by one, letting the desperate fury that drove him cool into the kind of dangerous calm that made it hard to meet his gaze.
“Who wants to see if I’ve gone soft?” he asked quietly. “Take your best shot. I dare you to.”
A few murmurs swept the crowd, and a pair of boys, both younger than Sebastian, pushed forward.
“Bet you’ve got coin from your job at the palace,” the shorter one said, raising his fists and rocking forward onto the balls of his feet.
“You can give it to us, or we can take it from you.” The other boy flicked his wrist and a homemade knife slid out from under his sleeve and into his palm.
Sebastian rolled his head from side to side and flexed his shoulders. “No one is taking anything from me.”