Chapter 8
As I trail the Nomad, I expect to follow him all the way back to the ship. Instead, he stops at a nearby tavern, thankfully not the one I was so courteously kicked out of earlier tonight.
Although, now that I consider it, I imagine they want the Nomad there less than they want me. I might have been a nuisance, but I didn’t leave with anyone’s fingers.
I’ve considered turning back a dozen times. This is a bad idea. If I know anything from my nightmares, it’s that the Nomad doesn’t kill me until after I’ve gotten my voice back. I could walk away now, and theoretically, he’ll never kill me.
At least, I think that’s how it works.
I’ll just have to stay diligent about not trimming my nails, instead.
I slink in behind him, hopeful the crowd in this tavern won’t mimic the last one. But when I open the door, warm air greets my cold cheeks. No one looks up from their tables. Everyone in here is too busy chatting to pay me any mind.
I survey the room until I find the Nomad.
He’s seated with his back to the door. I recognize him immediately.
I can’t count the number of times my pleasant dreams have been interrupted by the sturdy contour of his shoulders.
But the seating arrangement still surprises me.
I would think a man whose face has been recreated on as many wanted posters as his would know better than to sit with his back to the door.
But when I approach him from behind, I perhaps discover why he doesn’t bother to follow this particular safety protocol.
“Have you changed your mind, or are you simply hoping I’ll buy you a drink?” he asks without bothering to look over his shoulder.
I slip into the chair across from him, elbows on the table, matching his posture. I learned a long time ago that this trick goes a long way in getting men to respect you.
The Nomad surveys me up and down, his gaze skipping across my cloak from one mud clot to the next. “You know, we could have avoided this little trudge through the mud had you agreed to help back on the ship.”
I beckon to the pad sticking out of his inner coat pocket. He rolls his eyes and takes it out, handing it to me along with a quill and a small jar of ink. I give him a look that he quickly answers with, “One never knows when one might be in need of ink.”
I scribble on the paper, then push it across the table toward him.
“‘Stop gloating,’” he reads aloud, completely straight-faced. Then he flicks his gaze up to me. “I wasn’t gloating. My socks are wet. It’s a rather unsavory sensation, don’t you think? And I could do without the sloshing noise they make every time I take a step.”
It’s my turn to roll my eyes. I yank back the piece of parchment and write, I need assurances.
This time, I don’t bother pushing it across the table. The Nomad’s fae. He can see it just fine.
“Assurances?” he asks. “What sort of assurances? That we’ll succeed? Surely you know I can’t guarantee that.”
That you’ll pay me what I’m due, I write.
“I won’t double-cross you, if that’s what you mean,” he says. “Besides, what need do I have of your voice? I already have one of my own, and I’m rather fond of it. So are the females.”
I ignore him and write, What’s the plan, then?
The Nomad actually laughs. “You think I’m going to disclose it all to you? If you wanted that, you should’ve stayed back in my office. I could’ve laid my master plan out over the desk, shown you my blueprints of the Sister’s lair.”
I get the sense he’s mocking me, but I’m undeterred. Plans, or I walk.
“We’ll go over the plan once our team is assembled. I don’t like to repeat myself,” he says.
What team?
“You didn’t think we were going to break into the Sister’s lair, just the two of us, did you?”
The glimmer of confusion I let slip across my face has him grinning. It’s an annoyingly charming sort of grin.
“Ah, you thought because you were indispensable, you were all I needed. Not so. You were just part of the puzzle—the piece that was most difficult to find. You know, the one you dropped underneath the desk, in between the floorboards.”
If he’s referring to the tile that slipped between the floorboards in the tavern inn, I ignore it.
Now that I’ve gotten a few more of the questions out of the way—the ones I don’t really care to know the answers to beyond practicality—I ask the pressing one. The one that’s been haunting me. The one I didn’t want to seem too desperate by asking first.
Why me?
At this, the Nomad’s quick wit seems to lag. It’s the question he wanted me to ask, isn’t it?
The Nomad watches me carefully. “If you haven’t figured out what makes your voice special by now, I’m not inclined to tell you. I had to search for the answer for quite some time. I don’t see why I should give it to you for free.”
Annoyed, I make to leave, but the Nomad just laughs. “You’ve already done that once—and come back. Don’t make yourself pitiable by doing it twice.”
I offer him a steely stare, but he’s right.
I need my voice if I’m to survive in this world on my own.
I might’ve been able to get by without it if I were simply fae, but being a faerie—worse, a winged one—I have a poor chance of hiding what I am from faerie dust harvesters.
Especially if I can’t talk my way out of a situation.
Or even talk my way into a job, for that matter.
“There you go,” he says as I settle back into my seat, crossing my arms. “Where were we? Ah, yes, something about that voice of yours, and why it’s so important. Or was it why I need you?”
Whatever else he’s about to say, I don’t get to find out, because just then, the door to the tavern opens, and the Nomad throws his hands out. “Ah! Just who I was hoping to meet here.”
It really is unnerving how he can tell who is behind him without looking.
“Tink,” he says, as the two women approach. “This is Phoenix.” A tall woman with dark brown skin and long hair looks down at me suspiciously.
“And Venus,” he says, pointing to the other woman, the one with pale, almost translucent skin and curly red hair. He gestures, palms outspread, for them to sit on either side of him, but neither of them do. The Nomad smiles through his teeth.
“Why is it that everyone is so fond of standing today?” He shoots me a pointed stare, and I can’t help the twitch at the corner of my lips.
To my surprise, his lips twitch back.
“What do you want?” asks Phoenix. “I thought you said you had no interest in taking us on as crew members.”
“Well,” says the Nomad, folding his hands on the table, an innocent expression on his face, “I changed my mind.”
“Doubt that,” says Phoenix, but she takes a seat nonetheless, her companion, Venus, following her lead and taking the seat across from her, next to me.
“This is Tink,” says the Nomad.
“Sounds made up,” says Venus.
I grab the quill and scribble, Venus, really?
Venus scowls, but Phoenix is the one to answer. “They’re not our real names.”
The Nomad looks at her carefully. “I’m surprised you still wish to go by them, given their history.”
“We may not like our names or their origin,” says Phoenix, “but they do protect us from people like you tracking us down. Help keep us invisible.”
“Ironic as that is,” mutters Venus.
Back when I had my voice, I would have pressed Venus to elaborate. But writing takes time, and I have doubts about how long I’ll be able to keep the women’s attention, so I don’t pursue it.
He already tracked you down, I write on the parchment.
Venus glances down at it, then up at me. “You’re the one he was looking for, aren’t you?”
“Phoenix and Venus were rescued by me and my colleagues from a rather vibrant collector named Vulcan,” the Nomad says, gesturing to the two of them.
“Funny, I don’t remember you doing any rescuing,” says Phoenix. “So what do you need us for?”
This time, the Nomad’s grin has a hint of acid to it. “Really, you should be asking what you need me for.”
The two women roll their eyes, then look across at each other.
“I think we’ve heard enough,” says Phoenix.
The Nomad holds out his hand to stop her chair as she begins to slide it outward. “Vulcan didn’t take just any woman to be a muse. Only the unique. The fascinating. The extraordinary.”
He lingers on that word, glancing at me. “That’s why he wanted you. That’s why he was searching for the faerie with a lost voice.”
The hairs on the back of my neck bristle.
I hadn’t been aware there was another bounty on my head.
Although now that he’s mentioned it, I do remember being attacked by a man before Michael and I found Lady Whittaker.
I’d assumed he was a harvester and had caught on to the fact that I was a faerie.
Not that he had been hunting me down specifically.
I’d fought back and managed to escape, but if he’s still out there…
The Nomad must glimpse the flicker of fear on my face, because he says, “Oh, don’t worry. We dispatched him.”
Relief floods my body. That’s one person I won’t have to be on the run from, at the very least.
“Nolan Astor dispatched him,” corrects Phoenix. “Quite graphically.”
“Technically speaking, yes,” says the Nomad. “But whose name and face are on the wanted posters with a bounty large enough to purchase a small continent?”
“Congratulations, you win that one,” says Venus, taking a sip of her drink.
But I circle back to what the Nomad was implying. The two of you have magic, don’t you? I write.
“No,” says Venus through her teeth, her answer clipped.
I stare at her, and then, without glancing down at the parchment, write my next note. But you used to. He took it.
“Yes, well,” says Venus. “Muses always give a part of themselves, don’t they?”
What kind of magic?
“Does it matter?” snaps Phoenix.
Okay. So not the sort to brag. Makes sense why the Nomad’s interested in these two.
“But he wouldn’t have just taken your magic,” says the Nomad. “He would’ve kept it somewhere. Stored it. Like a trophy.”
“If you’re asking where he stored it, we don’t know,” says Phoenix.
“He might’ve told us many of his secrets, but never the ones that pertained to us.
For some of the muses, their magic was precious, and they would’ve done anything to get it back, even if it meant triggering bounties on their heads. ”
“But he would’ve kept your magic close,” says the Nomad.
“I don’t know,” says Phoenix with a shrug. “Probably. He liked to keep us close.”
“You’re not really thinking of trying to steal back our magic, are you?” says Venus. Her voice consists mostly of derision, but I don’t miss the glimmer of hope at its edges.
Neither does the Nomad, because he smiles. “Not for myself. For you.”
“No one’s that altruistic,” says Venus. “Especially not the Nomad.”
“That’s quite a sad way to think, don’t you think?” he asks. “But no, my motives aren’t entirely altruistic. In return for your magic, I need your assistance in retrieving a certain artifact.”
“What artifact?” says Phoenix.
“That’s none of your concern,” he fires back.
The two stare at each other for a long while before Phoenix breaks the silence. “And if you can’t manage to retrieve our magic?”
“Then we part ways,” says the Nomad.
The two women glance at each other across the table. Venus’s eyes are wide with pleading.
“We’ll think about it,” says Phoenix.
“No time to think,” says the Nomad. “Walk out of this tavern and the deal’s void.”
Phoenix’s fingers flinch at her sides, while Venus works her lip. This is probably not in my best interest, but I grab the quill. Don’t worry. It’s just talk. He said the same thing to me before I walked away, yet here we are.
Phoenix’s brow rises. So does the corner of her lip.
The Nomad appears less pleased.
“We’ll contact you with our final answer,” says Phoenix before she turns toward the door, beckoning Venus to follow. Venus pauses, looking reluctant to leave, but she eventually slides out of her chair and hurries behind her friend.
“Was that really necessary?” asks the Nomad once the door closes behind them.
I might be incapable of speaking, but I find smirking just as effective as it’s always been.