39. Kat
Kat
T he queen’s unspoken warning followed me back to our rooms. The lights were on when I entered, and in the sitting room I found Bastian, head in his hands before the fire.
I stopped in the doorway, struck by the collapsed lines of his shoulders and back.
Who you really are is what you do when no one is looking.
This was Bastian.
How had I ever questioned it?
The bored aristocrat who’d practically rolled his eyes at the idea of dancing with me. The stranger I’d seen in Albion after Robin had appeared. Business Bastian.
The cunning Serpent. The Bastard of Tenebris. The Night Queen’s Shadow who would go to any lengths to get what he wanted.
They were the masks.
This man—the one who came out when it was just the two of us—the scarred man, bent by responsibility, haunted by guilt from actions and memories that weren’t his own. This was the real Bastian.
The man I’d known in Albion— he was real .
It burned my eyes and throat.
“Bastian,” I said softly as I approached.
He swallowed as though gathering himself.
In this moment when he was vulnerable and soft, I ached to tell him about Elthea and the fact I’d had to get the memory of her treatments erased.
I ached to tell him everything .
But he didn’t need my pain on top of his own, and he was soft now, but he was also the man who’d broken bones for me. I needed Elthea’s cure, and to get it, I had to suffer in silence.
So, I took the chair next to his and curled up on it to face him. “What’s wrong?”
With a deep breath, he pulled his attention from the flames and swept his fingers back through his hair. “It’s been a long day.” One side of his mouth rose like he was trying to give me a comforting smile… and failing.
“What, in particular, made it so long?”
“Putting it diplomatically, the queen is not in the best of moods. Prince Sepher’s wedding has reminded her of… everything she doesn’t have.” Another attempt at a comforting smile.
Very diplomatically put.
“The king had several Dusk folk executed while we were away. If I’d been here…” He shook his head and his frown pierced my heart with thorns. “Then there’s…” He huffed out a long breath. “A list of things I can’t tell you. State secrets, etcetera.”
I tugged off my gloves and wrung them with both hands. “Does any of it relate to unCavendish?”
“Perhaps. It’s… unclear.”
“Is there some magic that could… I don’t know… Pull any knowledge from my head that I might’ve missed?” That had to be something Kaliban could do.
Bastian flinched and shook his head. “Not that I would risk using on you.”
I waited, but he didn’t elaborate. “There must be something I can do to help. Something I’ve missed. Maybe if you interview me again, I’ll—”
“I’m not putting you through that, Katherine. Not again.” His jaw rippled as he stared into the flames. “And even if I would, I don’t think there’s anything you missed in your report. You were perfect.”
I swallowed down the pleasure that word gave me. This wasn’t about me—this was about trying to pry some of that weight off his shoulders. “Then put me to work for you.”
“What?” He turned a fierce frown on me.
“I got that information about the necklace, didn’t I? I can be useful, and I can do something none of your kind can.”
“Lie.” His gaze flicked down to my mouth as though he could see every lie I’d told as a stain upon my skin.
“Even if you don’t need me as a spy, there must be something I can do. Plus, it sounds like you could use the help.”
His lips pressed together and he sat back. It felt frustratingly like a dismissal.
“Put me to work, Bastian. I don’t like being useless. And right now, with my inability to control this magic, I feel pretty damn useless.” Granted, I’d used Kaliban’s fire trick to help me keep it calmer, but it still didn’t feel like it was mine to control.
Bastian’s gaze skimmed over the rug. Thinking about it, perhaps.
“ Please .”
Growling, he gave me a sidelong glare, which was fair.
Using that word was a low blow. But didn’t he advocate so-called dirty tactics?
His jaw feathered as he folded his arms.
Perhaps he wouldn’t be so easy to manipulate in this matter.
Fine. Logic, then.
“We made a good team in Lunden.”
He raised an eyebrow in question.
“We stopped the changeling, didn’t we?”
“We weren’t exactly working together on that.”
“No. But we were both working on it, albeit separately. And we stopped him just in time.” Lifting my chin, I met his gaze squarely. “Imagine what we could do if we did work together.”
Several things flickered over his face, each too quick for me to dissect. But they amounted to one, important outcome: he was thinking about my proposal.
Eventually, he drew a deep breath. “Fine.”
I shot upright, grinning. It had worked.
He raised his hands, frown deepening in response. “But you’re not a spy. I won’t be sending you out as one of my operatives. It’ll be desk work. Research. Very boring. No sneaking around or trying to get information from anyone.”
I didn’t care. It was something. A purpose. Maybe even a tiny chip of stone taken off the weight he was carrying.
“Whatever you need, Bastian.”
The way his eyes widened told me something that dimmed my smile.
No one had ever said that to him before.
* * *
I spent the next week reading old books and calming myself by focusing on the fire each day. Forcing the stains back had become increasingly exhausting, and they bubbled back once my attention waned, but focusing on sensory details as I did with the fire seemed to help.
As for my reading, it turned out the language that was similar to Latium was High Valens—one of the old fae tongues.
Bastian claimed they’d shared it with humans and that was how Latium had been born. If he hadn’t been fae, I’d have called him a liar—Latium had originated around the Central Sea, not Albion.
Then again, he’d told me fae had once inhabited the whole world, only pushed back into Albion because of human expansion and their own dwindling numbers. The inhabitants of Elfhame certainly looked more diverse than the humans of Albion.
I shelved his claims as “maybe true.” At the very least, he believed them.
Now I worked for him, he’d told me the contents of the note from his orrery, so I searched for mentions of a Circle of Ash or anything that might be similar. The more I read, the less I had to refer back to the book of High Valens grammar Brynan had provided.
It felt good. I was being useful. I was learning. Maybe we’d get somewhere and find the Circle of Ash before Dawn and keep the Sleep in place.
One morning, Rose walked me to an appointment with Elthea. We stopped at the bottom of the steps and she cocked her head. “Lunch at Moonsong after?”
I glanced at the orrery tower—Rose had taught me how to read the time from it. I needed at least an hour for the appointment—some stretched on longer. Then I could go to Kaliban’s with supplies, get my memory cleared, and get to the spire in perhaps forty-five minutes.
“Perry and Ella are coming,” she said with a playful lilt.
“Sounds great.” Once my memory was wiped, I would be able to stomach food in blissful ignorance of whatever Elthea was about to do to me. “I’ll meet you there.”
Inside, I found Elthea waiting in her treatment room. With only the briefest greeting, she waved me onto the bed. “This one…” Her fingers fluttered over her notebook with a kind of excited energy. “This might be the one, Katherine.” She smiled. Actually smiled—it sparked in her eyes.
My last treatment. I’d be able to go home.
Great. Awful. Did I really want to?
I swallowed down the knot of feelings and questions.
Of course I wanted to be cured and go home.
I would be able to hug Ella and stroke Vespera.
I wouldn’t need to fear accidentally brushing against someone in the palace halls or on the street.
I wouldn’t need to arrange to see Bastian every day to get my antidote.
He would be free of me and me of him. It was what we both wanted. An end to this awkward entanglement.
I gave Elthea a tight smile and sat on the bed. She strapped me down—ankles as well as wrists. That set my heart pounding harder, faster.
Just one more treatment. Then this would all be over.
Her gaze flicked over my fingers. “What a pretty ring.”
Bastian’s ring. Never reveal your heart. Nor his. “Thank you. It’s new.”
She held still and watched me, no doubt waiting for me to answer her unasked question—where did it come from?
I smiled blandly at her. Let her think the human too stupid to understand subtext.
Eventually, she huffed and opened the glass-fronted cabinet. Inside sat a smaller case that she unlocked and opened, revealing row upon row of tiny vials. Some glowed. Some glittered. One was a black void, as though it sucked light out of the very world.
I didn’t see which she selected, but she approached with something held tight to her chest.
“It was a challenge to get hold of this. One of the hunters died. But I’m sure we’ll see results.”
I swallowed. It was as though my heart was trying to beat its way up my throat and out. “What is it?”
She held up a tiny vial, only an inch long, the top sealed with black wax.
Its contents moved sluggishly around, not responding to her movement but…
as if it had a life of its own. It licked the top and bottom of the vial where she held it, perhaps drawn to her flesh.
As it slithered and moved, it caught the light, gleaming a dark, yellowish green.
“This”—she held the vial up and examined it—“is manticore venom.”
“Venom? You’re going to poison me? That isn’t—”
“Are you a scientist, Katherine?”
“No, but I have a brain.” The harshness in my voice and the fact I questioned her—not bravery but desperation. I yanked on the leather straps but they held fast. She was insane. Why had I sent Rose away?
I tried to contain myself, but my breaths heaved. “I’m already poisoned. You’re going to kill me if you—”