9. Kat
Kat
I t had started off as all my evenings in Elfhame had: reading and drinking. But I’d run out of books, so now I was just drinking.
It didn’t dull the pain of my loneliness though.
I’d spent years on my estate with just two other people, and much of that time working alone. It had never bothered me. But Ella’s friendship and whatever I’d believed was happening between me and Bastian had left a hole.
The books had gone halfway towards filling it, and normally drink would top up the rest, helping me sleep.
But it turned out I couldn’t get drunk anymore, as the half empty decanter attested to. This magic was stopping the alcohol. Had to be. I didn’t feel the slightest bit fuzzy. It certainly hadn’t silenced the memories that came now I was alone.
Losing control of my body as I shook and stumbled through Riverton Palace, poison creeping along my veins. The pain. The numbness in my fingers. The world turning grey and fading in and out of existence.
And underlining it all—the knowledge that the same poison lingered in my system, ready to claim my life if Bastian forgot to come and give me the antidote.
It was a week since the debriefing and I’d barely seen him. Every day I left a note to remind him about the antidote. Dutifully, he would appear while I was in the middle of eating lunch (invariably while my mouth was full), touch my wrist, then disappear before I had a chance to say a word.
Aside from the servants, that was the only time I saw another soul. I tried to speak to them. One of the women who brought me meals had caramel-coloured hair like Ella’s. I’d hoped she might have something of her personality. I’d been disappointed.
There was only one Ella.
This woman was polite and answered some questions but deflected most. The other servants were the same.
The only other face I saw was in the mirror, and I didn’t recognise that woman anymore. She hadn’t even summoned much of a smile when a message had arrived from Elthea telling me to come for an appointment tomorrow.
Instead, I’d found people in the books on his shelves—or their facsimiles, at least. Good enough to quiet my mind.
They carried me on their adventures, a silent observer sitting on their shoulder, sifting through their thoughts, seeing patterns and experiences I recognised, even though I’d never been in the same situations.
They saved me from my loneliness. For a while.
Many of the stories were in Albionic, thankfully.
But I finished those too quickly. One was in Frankish—the first chapter was a struggle, like pushing a wheelbarrow with a rusted axle.
With perseverance, it wore off, though, and I found myself enjoying the tale of a girl who dressed as a boy in order to join the ranks of the king’s famous guard. But it was over too soon.
A handful of the books were in a script I couldn’t make head nor tail of—it used a slashing alphabet I’d never seen before.
Several were in a language that wasn’t quite Latium.
The verb declensions were completely different—much simpler, thankfully—but most vocabulary seemed the same.
Perhaps a precursor? Still, it was close enough for me to understand, and I read those books falteringly.
I’d finished the last one just after dinner.
And now I was alone.
For a while I’d paced, trying to distract my mind with movement, but I found myself picking at the seams of my gloves.
So, here I sat, a useless sack of bones.
A fucking gloomy sack of bones.
I downed the rest of my drink, barely tasting it, and poured another.
He couldn’t mean to keep me locked in here forever, could he? I tried to ask when he appeared at lunchtime, but I’d barely managed two words before he disappeared again.
Of course. He had work to do.
Maybe he’d been in such a rush, he’d forgotten to lock the door.
I lurched to my feet, not even swaying despite how much I’d drunk. Once I reached the antechamber, I held my breath and tried the door.
Still locked. And magically, so my rudimentary lock picking skills were a waste of time. (I’d broken a few hairpins finding that out.)
I needed…
I needed something . Wringing my hands, I returned to the settee and threw myself onto it.
Answers. Something to do. A conversation, even. Anything but sitting here waiting to die from that changeling’s poison.
If I stayed up late enough, I would catch Bastian.
So, I commanded the fae lights to dim and sat in the gathering darkness with his brandy and waited.
* * *
I was drifting off when the door opened hours later. Head bowed, eyes aglow, Bastian slipped inside without calling for the lights, but I could see him in the odd pinkish glow of the banked fire. I found my tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth.
It had worked. He hadn’t seen me—hadn’t bothered to look because he didn’t expect me to be awake.
And because he was so used to his rooms being his sanctuary.
I grimaced as all the words I’d planned fled.
He was almost at the door when I looked up from my drink and found him peeling off his shirt. Across his flesh, the sinuous curves of an inked snake carved their way across his shoulders and down his back. The firelight picked out flecks of light in its darkness. Were they stars?
I wasn’t meant to be ogling his body. This was an ambush.
“You missed a rule in your list.” My voice cut through the quiet. “The one where I’m not allowed to leave your rooms.”
He straightened and turned, eyebrows tight together as he called for the fae lights to brighten in their sconces. “What are you doing up?” His gaze landed on the empty decanter. The look he shot me pierced, not even remotely softened by the alcohol. “Drinking?”
I snorted at the accusation in his tone. “You locked me in your rooms. The guards at the door won’t let me leave. What did you expect me to do?”
He stiffened, a wince adding to the darkness around his eyes. “There are plenty of books—”
“I’ve read them all.” I waved my hand. “Except for the ones in that strange alphabet that looks like knife slashes.”
His eyebrows rose. “How did you read them so quickly? And the—”
“It’s been a week, Bastian.”
Blinking, he raked a hand through his hair, gaze skipping across the thick carpet as though reckoning the days. “Shit. I… I wasn’t fully prepared for you to wake when you did, and I hadn’t considered that you’d be left here without entertainment. That being said, drinking is not the answer.”
The breath left me in a loud huff of disbelief.
Not quite a laugh, but close. “Business Bastian is lecturing me.” Because that was how he sounded—all formal and judgemental.
I stood, hands on hips. “The man who dropped me in the middle of a palace and fucked off for a week is lecturing me. That’s bloody rich. ”
His jaw rippled, and I could see the effort it took to lower his squared shoulders. “Go to bed, Kat. You’re drunk.”
“No. I’m not. That’s the problem—I can’t get drunk, but I can still get a lecture from Business Bastian, it seems.” I smiled and spread my hands. “Please continue. Tell me what it is I’m supposed to do while locked in your rooms. If drink isn’t the answer, what is?”
His eyelids fluttered and he drew a breath, but no words came.
Part of me ached at the sight of the dark rings around his eyes and the way his shadows barely summoned more than a ripple around his feet. He was exhausted.
But so was I.
Exhausted and alone and lost.
So fucking lost.
My eyes burned as I squeezed my hands into useless fists. “What do you want me to do, Bastian? I have no purpose here. Nothing to do. No one to speak to. You’ve clearly ordered the servants not to talk to me.”
He bristled. “I did no such—”
“Even if you didn’t—they won’t. I tried.
But…” I held my breath as the pressure behind my eyes grew.
But it was no use. I couldn’t hold either thing back.
“You left me here with nothing but my own mind. And I can’t stop thinking about…
about everything.” I tugged at the pearlwort necklace.
“The only time I’m not alone is when you appear for thirty seconds, touch my wrist, and disappear because…
because…” I held up my hands, the purple stains covering my fingers and bleeding onto my palms—the poison as uncontrolled as my garbled words.
“You put your blood in me and now I’m this thing . ”
“I saved your life,” he growled.
“It wasn’t worth saving.”
Stillness rushed into the room, sucking out every sound.
Bastian stared at me, eyes wide. He couldn’t have looked more shocked if I’d slapped him.
My stomach condensed, tight and roiling around the brandy. If I could’ve pulled the words out of the air and stuffed them back into my mouth, I would’ve.
“You don’t mean that,” he murmured so softly I almost didn’t hear. “It’s just the drink talking.”
Maybe he was right. Maybe the brandy had affected me and I hadn’t realised. Did that make it wrong, though? Or was it a truth the drink had allowed me to say?
If the poison had killed me, my death (and thus my life) would’ve had meaning. Now…
I shook my head.
I needed direction. I needed something to do. I needed to not feel like unCavendish was ruling my fucking life from beyond the grave. The poison was his. I was here because of him . And this necklace—this fucking necklace was like his fingers around my throat.
I didn’t even know why . Who was he working for? Were they here in Tenebris? In the palace? Were they still after Bastian? Or me?
What—or who had put him on my path? On Ella’s… on Lara’s?
“Kat, I…” Bastian started closer, stopped, let his hands fall to his sides. The broad expanse of his chest heaved a few times before he spoke again.
Shoving away the questions chasing through my mind, I watched the glint of his piercing—better that than meeting his gaze.
“I’m sorry.” His shoulders sank. “I didn’t realise how cruel it was to lock you in here.” He looked around the room as if seeing it afresh.
I was only too happy to pretend I hadn’t said what I’d just said. This argument was just about being locked up. The dark turn of my thoughts—let him believe that was down to alcohol.
“I’ve been so absorbed with my work, and…” He bowed his head, pain etched between his eyebrows. “No, it isn’t that. Kat, I wanted to keep you safe.”
All this, for safety? My obsession. The gods had a shitty sense of humour sometimes.
“Locking me up is not keeping me safe. It’s torture.”
As he met my gaze, every cool edge of Business Bastian melted away. The man standing before me now was pained, contrite, and, judging by the way he clenched and unclenched his hands, torn. “I’m sorry. Truly. I promise I’ll fix this first thing in the morning.”
“Will I be able to go outside?”
“Yes, of course. I’m…” He shook his head. “Tomorrow, you’ll see the city, safely. I will fix this .”
The city. Beautiful and dangerous, just like fae.
But it held answers. Someone had to know about unCavendish. I had this necklace, and although it felt like a collar binding me to his leash, it was also a starting point.
Bastian had made it clear he wasn’t going to share his work and secrets with me. If I wanted to know who unCavendish was working for—and I needed to, for my sake and for Lara’s memory—I was going to have to find out for myself.
In silence, Bastian put the decanter away, and I let him usher me to my room. The fae lights dimmed as he left.
The shadow of his feet remained at the crack beneath my door for a long while.