Chapter Twenty-Two
Everyone looked at Nick with varying degrees of curiosity.
“I don’t even know how to go about answering that,” Nick admitted.
“As a guest of Vi’s, you must be someone of prominence,” Ios pointed out.
“No,” Nick objected. “My brothers’ friend Sam is dating Vi’s nephew, so my entire family was invited.”
There was a pregnant pause. Shifting doubt among the faces, and Seche directed a troubled look at Kit. “Vi’s nephew?”
“Yes,” Kit said.
“The merman.”
“Yes,” Kit repeated, a note of defiance in his voice.
“So the reason every trader from here to the north pass is dragging their ships onto shore is because…” Seche’s gaze slid to Nick, a humourless smile curving his lips. “You napped a family friend of the merfolk.” Kit’s hand tensed on his fork, but he didn’t interrupt.
“Kit only did that because of Lady Desre,” Ios cut in, his friendliness replaced by a firm undercurrent of steel. “We will explain it to them.”
“Sure. Jump into the water. I wager you’ll get one word out before you’re drowned,” Seche replied. They all spoke low enough that those outside of the group wouldn’t be able to hear, not with the music and hum of other conversations in the hall.
“What was he supposed to do?” Ios scowled. “This is why I said we should have taken him before they left Aridia, like we’d prepared for.”
“We’d prepared for Kit to set off, not for her to be on board with him.” Seche’s tail flicked, showing his irritation. “We would have lost.”
Nick wondered about that. There were so many here, and he got the impression this rebellion had more than those in the hall in its numbers—among all of them, how could there be nobody able to best her?
Was the only solution to resist her the symbol on his arm?
Idly, Nick brushed his thumb over the mark.
Drawing it onto Kit hadn’t worked, but now that they weren’t under immediate threat, perhaps a different solution was possible?
“Is Desre the only reason you haven’t overthrown the council yet?” Nick asked. “And her power?”
There was an uncomfortable silence. Kit inclined his body towards Nick.
In the small dispute among them, Kit’s tail had found its way around Nick’s leg, and it latched on tightly now as if for comfort.
“The other members are…lacking.” Seche raised a brow at Kit’s comment.
“They can be overcome, not without difficulty—their guards are skilled, and their control in Aridia is uncontested—but she has been undefeated. I will not be told the details because of the risk, but I imagine that there has been considerable progress against them since Desre departed Aridia with me.”
Ios made a confirming noise in his throat, and Seche smacked his thigh with his tail. Ios hissed, and Seche met his animosity with a calmly raised brow.
Nick moved his attention from Kit to Seche. “The spell that lets me resist her—I can have it drawn onto you and your men.”
They all straightened.
Kit’s tail tightened.
Seche stared boldly at Nick’s face, and Nick didn’t back down from his gaze. “A magnificent promise. What would it cost?” Wry disbelief edged Seche’s voice.
“In exchange,” Nick said, “don’t mess around with capture or interrogation. Just kill her.”
Seche’s tail hooked. “Deal.”
Kit’s breath released on a shaky exhale at Nick’s side.
Nick looked, seeing a flash of fear in Kit’s face, and after that was gone, imperfectly repressed anxiety.
Nick’s fingers twitched to reach out, but he suppressed that instinct.
Instead, he turned the hand in his lap palm up, and in a mere second, Kit’s tail was there, winding into his grip. “What’s wrong?” Nick asked.
“That will involve kits going to Vi’s estate.” Kit’s voice was strained. “While merfolk are incensed against us.”
“Going to Vi’s estate with me,” Nick pointed out. “And I’ll make sure nobody gets hurt.”
“They didn’t kill anyone on Lady Desre’s ship,” Ios pointed out.
“They didn’t come near the ship in the first place,” Nick said.
Ios’s head cocked to the side. “They caught up with it hours after we made our escape.”
Nick had been looking at Kit, trying to reassure him through eye contact that he wasn’t trying to lead his friends into an ambush. It was only because he was looking that he saw the surprise that filled Kit’s face. Nick blinked, not registering the words at first.
He turned slowly to Ios. “Are you screwing with me?”
The crude phrasing seemed to delight Ios. “No.”
“Hours? Hours after I was gone, they decided to check that ship?” Nick repeated, outraged. “For fuck’s sake. Where’s the river? I’m going to go yell at the water until those assholes find me.”
Ios chuckled, though there was something fearful in the sound.
“The timing is…odd.” Kit’s brow creased. “None were hurt?” he double-checked.
“Not that our scouts could tell,” Ios confirmed.
Seche was looking thoughtfully between Kit and Nick. “That plan is agreeable,” he said.
“What plan?” Kit frowned.
“Nick,” Seche addressed him. “Tomorrow, I will bring you to the river where we can call for the merfolk. We have scouts along the banks all the way from the ocean to the slopes of Aridia; we will find them without difficulty.”
Kit’s frown deepened, his blue gaze remaining fixed on Seche. “That is Valor’s decision, is it not?”
“Nick was left in my care, actually,” Seche said. But something about him softened as he took in Kit’s troubled look. “General or not, Valor couldn’t possibly use the one you’ve imprinted on to his advantage.”
Ios’s tail thumped Seche’s backside.
“Nor would we,” Seche added. Without missing a beat, he reached out, snatching Ios by the tail and yanking the kit halfway out of his chair. Seche cast Ios a warning look, and though Ios inclined his head in submission, his eyes were nothing but defiant.
Nick digested the turn the conversation had taken.
He’d thought he’d have to sneak away. He’d thought he’d have to somehow convince Valor to send him off to Vi’s estate with a guide.
He hadn’t expected to just be taken at his word that he wanted to help.
And oddly enough, there were no doubts or disbelief stirring within him; he believed Seche.
Playful squeals and yelps interrupted them. Half a dozen kids abruptly surrounded his chair, all carrying wooden buckets filled with water. They sloshed dangerously, but they all managed not to spill anything.
“Frog,” the nearest one declared, setting it down right next to Nick. Nick peered in, and immediately his nose was scrunching. They started laughing.
“That is disgusting,” Nick said flatly. It was, exactly as Kit had described: round, slimy and green.
But what Kit hadn’t mentioned was that it was the size of a football, the slime was a paler green that looked like snot, and its eyes were set so far apart it looked plain derpy.
“Seriously, that is the ugliest thing I’ve ever seen. Do you have one in all the buckets?”
The next kit came in with his bucket. “This one is a boy.”
“It’s even uglier.”
They cackled as they showed Nick what the babies looked like, what the eggs were, and then one of the smallest children showed Nick a worm before dropping it into the bucket so he could see its mouth open.
Once show and tell was over, they picked the buckets back up and trotted out of the hall.
Feeling Kit’s gaze, Nick turned towards him.
“That is not what I meant by frog,” Nick said.
The corner of Kit’s mouth twitched up. The tufts of his tail flexed against Nick’s forearm, and he realised that he was still holding Kit’s tail in a soft grip.
He’d been messing with it too while the children had shown him the fish.
“I assumed not; you bear no resemblance to it,” Kit noted, referring to Nick’s earlier self-deprecating remark.
“They are waiting for me to open the first cask. Would you join me?”
Nick didn’t really like the idea of taking part in something that would result in a room full of people looking at him, and he could also see that, as many looks as Kit was getting, Nick was on the receiving end of just as many curious stares.
A flash of pale hair caught Nick’s eye, and he looked to the dance floor.
The blond kit from before was dancing still, persisting with vigour and enthusiasm, reminding Nick once more of Laurence.
A pang of homesickness went through him.
Nick didn’t push it away, but let the feeling settle.
It had been weeks since he’d been taken from Vi’s home, and his family were undoubtedly worried sick about him by now, though hopefully not for much longer.
Nick would rather their reunion be filled with stories about bitter wine, dancing and young kits running around catching frog things.
“Sure,” Nick said.
Nick let Kit’s tail slip through his fingers as he stood and then followed him closely to the casks.
Children, who seemed to universally adore Kit, sprang from every direction, and in twos and threes they gathered around different casks, a proprietary hand or tail touching each barrel.
They were a variety of barrel sizes, the smallest probably containing enough wine to fill one bottle, while the largest might hold ten times that.
Kit stopped at the nearest group. “How many grapes did you pick?” Kit assumed his smooth, instructive teacher voice.
“Eight hundred and twelve!”
Nick didn’t realise until the third cask that they were going to be tasting wine from all the barrels, and by then he was committed to making sure he didn’t disappoint any of the young kits patiently waiting their turn.