Chapter Thirteen Taissa #3
It’s a knotted key, this glyph, although it’s hard to tell.
Each stroke is a swirl, and Knox’s finger is only so large.
Taissa’s tongue pokes out between her lips as she draws, and when it’s finally complete, she steps away in satisfaction.
Her back bumps into something hard and broad.
Kion’s ridiculous chest, she realizes as he makes a sound of irritation low in his throat and his warm hands come up to her shoulders to nudge her slightly away.
She wonders if they linger for a moment longer than necessary—but that’s ridiculous.
Knox blinks at her. “I don’t feel any different.”
“Try to run your mouth,” she says, and it sounds more like a threat. But Knox looks amused. He opens his mouth—and nothing comes out. Eyes widening, he tries again. And again.
Still, nothing.
“It’s like the secret is stuck in my throat,” he finally says, looking delighted. “Like that time I choked on a cough sweet, but in reverse.”
“I remember that,” Bronte snorts. “I smacked you so hard it flew out and hit Samara in the face.”
Triumphant, Taissa turns to the others. “Who’s next?”
In the end, all the Stymphs wear Untolds. Except James, who is currently locked in a stare-down with Taissa.
“James,” says Taissa with mock-sweetness, “won’t you please come here?”
“I can drag him,” offers óríon, sounding utterly serious.
James Ridgeshaw IV breaks the stare-off.
Taissa misguidedly feels a sense of victory until she belatedly realizes that James is eyeing the glossy black door of Kion’s flat.
Presumably he’s preparing to run straight to the papers in the hopes of exposing this fraud and shunting Taissa right back off to the lovely Scran Mart.
“James,” Kion says quietly. It sounds like a plea and a warning, rolled into one. The team’s captain is tense, stepping into James’s eyeline, blocking view of the flat’s door. His jaw is set, yet his eyes are uncertain.
“Come on, Ridgeshaw,” Bronte urges, beginning to frown, toying worriedly with one of the golden cuffs gleaming in a slender plait. “You’re being ridiculous. We’d be worse off without her, and you know it. Whatever this is really about, you need to let it go.”
“Don’t tell me you don’t want to be part of our super-secret tattoo club,” Mahina adds, her wry smile matching Adriel’s as his lips move in time to her darting hands.
Her Untold glyph, on her finger, flashes black in the air.
The dark coloring will fade in a few minutes to blend in with each player’s skin tone, but activate and turn inky black once more if they attempt to spill Taissa and Kion’s secret.
Not all glyphs camouflage themselves like so, but the Untold glyph’s very nature is secretive.
“Very exclusive, you know, and you’re being offered a last-call chance at admittance. ”
“If you snitch on Taissa,” Knox says, folding his arms and stepping to her side, “I’ll shave off your eyebrows in your sleep.”
James flinches.
“He is not joking,” adds óríon, unnecessarily. Knox smiles unpleasantly and waggles his own brows.
“I’m sorry, mate,” Kion says quietly, barely audible as he reaches out a hand to clap James’s shoulder. Taissa watches as the other man recoils, as Kion’s arm falls to his side. She straightens as James turns back to her, his face haggard, and his eyes bright with dislike.
“Fine,” he says coldly. “Do what you must.”
The air in the flat is practically frigid by the time Taissa finishes marking him with the Untold.
Without a backward glance, James spins on his heel and strides out of the flat.
After a brief moment of awkward silence, the rest of the team begins to trickle after him, muttering good nights and—in Knox’s case—platitudes about the excellent efficacy of eyebrow-shaving threats.
When the door swings shut behind them, something in Kion’s expression breaks—just a bit—until he seems to remember that Taissa is still standing right there, in the midst of his broken table.
“Do you want to step out of the glass pile now?” he asks slowly.
She grimaces. She’s been so focused on protecting their secret that she completely forgot that one, she broke the table, and two, her ankles are still bleeding where the glass shattered around them.
Suddenly lightheaded (she blames the sheer amount of Untolds she inked), Taissa tries to step away—and her legs promptly buckle.
Locke’s there in a moment, hooking one arm underneath her knees.
The glass crunches as he lowers her onto the sofa, still warm from where the others had been sitting.
A funny look crosses his visage as he stares down at her baffie.
She hasn’t seen this look on him before.
More accustomed is she to hate, anger, annoyance, irritation, and bloodthirstiness on his stupid, aggravating, and obnoxiously handsome face.
Kion has his qyl out in a moment. “Merlin’s scraggly beard, Cho,” he mutters gruffly, and Taissa nearly jumps out of her skin as he gently slides off her baffie, cupping her ankle in his warm, calloused hands.
Gently. Too gently. An odd feeling has begun to flutter around in her stomach.
“You can administer seven Untolds but not a single bloody Panacea?”
She violently jerks her foot out of his grip, hoping he doesn’t see the traitorous stain on her cheeks. (A stain of anger. Anger.) “I can do that myself, thanks.”
He has the nerve to look offended. “Only trying to help.”
“No need.” She draws the Panacea in short, jerky motions. “You and your mouth have done more than enough.”
Kion sits back on his haunches, eyes dark slashes in his face.
“What would you have had me do? You’ve seen my team.
óríon and Knox want to kill one another, Isla barely speaks to anybody anymore because Bronte broke her damn heart, Mahina and Adriel are always squirreled away together, and James—” His mouth works.
“I just can’t afford any more dysfunction.
I did my fucking best to lie, Cho, I did, but I couldn’t do it any longer. ”
“So you just thought to jeopardize my career,” she mutters. “Again.”
“No offense, Cho, but you don’t have much of a career anymore.”
“Yeah,” she half laughs, even though there’s nothing remotely funny about this situation, “and I’d love to know whose fault that—”
“I’m getting real fucking tired of you bringing up—”
Taissa curls her hands into fists, cutting him short with a harsh pivot. “Locke, why in Morgana’s name is your team so bad?”
He falters as she cuts him off. Clearly, this wasn’t what he’d expected her to burst out with. “What?”
“What the hells is happening? Look, you lot were never the best—”
“Fuck you.” His words are half-hearted, though.
“—but you were never the worst, either.” Taissa tilts her chin up at him as he slowly stands, crossing his arms. (No, she has not noticed how muscular his tanned forearms are.) “And I, I was amazing—”
“And as bloody humble as ever.”
“But this”—Taissa gestures helplessly, shifting on the sofa—“this is on another level entirely, Locke. All of us, we play like…”
“Rookies,” he grumbles reluctantly. “We play like rookies.”
“Yeah. But I guarantee you one thing.”
“Out with it.”
“I think,” she says slowly, “that if I were playing carriwitchet on another team, any other team, I’d be good. More than good. I’d be like I used to be, an absolute force to be reckoned with. Even if I were with the Cockatrices. Even if I were with the Pegases.”
He seems to be grinding his molars together. “Nice of you.”
Taissa takes a deep breath, ignoring his sulkily offended glare. “Locke. Have you considered…Have you considered the possibility that the NCL Stymphs are cursed?”