Her gaze flicked to the bottom drawer of the chest, then drifted back to Kell. He looked deathly pale against the dark blanket on her bed, and he wasn’t moving, save for the faint rise and fall of his chest.
She took him in, the magical young man in her bed, first so guarded, now exposed. Vulnerable. Her eyes trailed up the lines of his stomach, over his wounded ribs, across his throat. They wandered down his arms, bare but for the knife strapped to his forearm. She hadn’t touched it this time.
“What happened?” asked Barron.
Lila wasn’t entirely sure how to answer that. It had been a very strange night.
“I stole something, and he came looking for it,” she said quietly, unable to draw her eyes from Kell’s face. He looked younger asleep. “Took it back. I thought that was the end of that. But someone else came looking for him. Found me instead…” She trailed off, then picked up. “He saved my life,” she said, half to herself, brow crinkling. “I don’t know why.”
“So you brought him here.”
“I’m sorry,” said Lila, turning toward Barron. “I didn’t have anywhere else to go.” The words stung even as she said them. “As soon as he wakes—”
Barron was shaking his head. “I’d rather you here than dead. The person who did this”—he waved a hand at Kell’s body—“are they dead?”
Lila shook her head.
Barron frowned. “Best tell me what they look like, so I know not to let them in.”
Lila described Holland as best she could. His faded appearance. His two-toned eyes. “He feels like Kell,” she added. “If that makes sense. Like—”
“Magic,” said Barron matter-of-factly.
Lila’s eyes widened. “How do you…?”
“Running a tavern, you meet all kinds. Running this tavern, you meet all kinds, and then some.”
Lila realized she was shivering, and Barron went in search of another tunic for Kell while she changed. He came back with an extra towel, a small pile of clothes, and a steaming bowl of soup. Lila felt ill and grateful at the same time. Barron’s kindness was like a curse, because she knew she had done nothing to deserve it. It wasn’t fair. Barron did not owe her anything. Yet she owed him so much. Too much. It drove her mad.
Still, her hunger had finally caught up with her fatigue, and the cold in her skin was quickly becoming the cold in her bones, so she took the soup and mumbled a thank-you and added the cost to the coin she already owed, as if this kind of debt could ever be paid.
Barron left them and went below. Outside, the night wore on. The rain wore on, too.
She didn’t remember sitting down, but she woke up an hour or so later in her wooden chair with a blanket tossed over her shoulders. She was stiff, and Kell was still asleep.
Lila rolled her neck and sat forward.
“Why did you come back?” she asked again, as if Kell might answer in his sleep.
But he didn’t. Didn’t mumble. Didn’t toss or turn. He just lay there, so pale and so still that now and then Lila would hold a piece of glass to his lips to make sure he hadn’t died. His bare chest rose and fell, and she noticed that, present injuries aside, he had so few scars. A faint line at his shoulder. A much fresher one across his palm. A ghosted mark in the crook of his elbow.
Lila had too many scars to count, but she could count Kell’s. And she did. Several times.
The tavern below had quieted, and Lila got to her feet and burned a few more herbs. She turned her silver watch and waited for Kell to wake. Sleep dragged at her bones, but every time she thought of rest, she imagined Holland stepping through her wall, the way Kell had. Pain echoed through her arm where he’d gripped her, a small jagged burn the only relic, and her fingers went to the Flintlock at her hip.
If she had another shot, she wouldn’t miss.
EIGHT
AN ARRANGEMENT
I
Kell woke up in Lila’s bed for the second time that night.
Though at least this time, he discovered, there were no ropes. His hands rested at his sides, bound by nothing but the rough blanket that had been cast over him. It took him a moment to remember that it was Lila’s room, Lila’s bed, to piece together the memory of Holland and the alley and the blood, and afterward, Lila’s grip and her voice, as steady as the rain. The rain had stopped falling now, and low morning light was creeping into the sky, and for a moment all Kell wanted was to be home. Not in the shoddy room in the Ruby Fields, but at the palace. He closed his eyes and could almost hear Rhy pounding on his door, telling him to get dressed because the carriages were waiting, and so were the people.
“Get ready or be left behind,” Rhy would say, bursting into the room.
“Then leave me,” Kell would groan.
“Not a chance,” Rhy would answer, wearing his best prince’s grin. “Not today.”
A cart clattered past outside, and Kell blinked, Rhy fading back into nothing.
Were they worried about him yet, the royal family? Did they have any idea what was happening? How could they? Even Kell did not know. He knew only that he had the stone, and that he needed to be rid of it.
He tried to sit up, but his body cried out, and he had to bite his tongue to keep from voicing it. His skin, his muscle, his very bones … everything ached in a steady, horrible way, as if he were nothing but a bruise. Even the beat of his heart in his chest and the pulse of his blood through his veins felt sore, strained. He felt like death. It was as close as he had ever come, and closer than he ever wished to be. When the pain—or at least the novelty of it—lessened, he forced himself upright, bracing a hand against the headboard.