Chapter Twenty-Two Taissa #2
“There’s a nice spot on the floor,” she says quickly, and points to a dusty spot in the corner. “Warm and cozy-like.”
“So generous,” Kion mutters.
“Do you want to sleep in my bed?” Her voice has a familiar antagonistic edge, but some part of her might possibly be hoping he’ll say yes. The way they kissed this morning…
Flabbergasted has given way to something like mortal offense. “The boudoir shoot is over, Cho.”
Ah, right. With those six little words, she has come floating down to reality. No matter how much her memory reaches back toward Kion’s lips roving across her skin, it was pretend. All pretend. Fake, false, fabricated, and most important, finished.
She was worried that this would happen, that she’d become confused, fact mingling with fiction in her head.
Fake-dating and Taissa Cho, it seems, do not mix well.
Taissa fights against the rush of humiliation threatening to swallow her.
It wasn’t like she was asking Kion to let her ride him to heaven and back.
There are two sides of every bed, after all.
Kion’s face seems to soften as her traitorous cheeks stain red. Or perhaps she’s imagining it. Overhead, Knox screeches like a pterodactyl. óríon snarls something unintelligible in violent Icelandic. “I should probably go stop them from killing each other,” he says.
“Right.”
“Right.”
Neither of them moves.
“Good night, then,” says Taissa. “Please do feel inclined to let the bedbugs bite.”
“ ’Night, Cho,” says Kion, who looks (impossibly) like he’s on the verge of smiling. It’s possible that her heart sinks a little as he turns away instead, and walks out the door, closing it softly behind him.
“Shite,” mutters Taissa, and slaps her palm against her forehead.
(She’s woken hours later, maybe by the sound of soft footsteps, maybe by the sound of the front door opening and closing. Maybe by the rumble of her car starting.
Maybe.
The tides of sleep pull her back under. It’s a very long time before she wakes again.)
Shifty. Extremely shifty.
That’s how Kion Locke looks in the early morning as he leans against her battered old car with the rest of the Stymphs, hands in his pocket, looking anywhere but at Taissa as she locks up the cottage.
(Interesting. She’s never seen Kion Locke look shifty before. Between this and flabbergasted, she’s collecting many more of his expressions.)
“Whoa!” a small voice exclaims. “Are you Kion Locke?”
Hands on her hips, Taissa turns around on the sunken front porch to see little Abigail Williams traipsing across her lawn, mouth sticky from jam, orange hair stuck into pigtails. In one of her chubby hands, she holds a nibbled-upon scone.
“Abigail Williams!” she shouts, more out of habit than anything, pointing an accusing finger. “Off my lawn!”
Abigail cheerfully gives her an obscene gesture that Taissa has never before seen, skipping up to Locke and proffering him her half-eaten scone. Bronte claps a hand over her mouth, apparently to hide a cackle as Abigail says, “Here. It’s for you.”
Pocketing her key, Taissa strolls over to the others, expecting Kion to fix the little girl with a withering glare and demand who would want a soggy scone (it’s what she would do).
Instead, Locke very visibly grimaces, before taking the scone in his hand.
“Thanks,” says Kion (not gently, but not unkindly, either) and Abigail beams like he’s handed her the moon.
“My da says you’re even more rotten at carriwitchet now than you were before,” she says.
“But not as rotten as her.” A sticky, jam-coated finger points to Taissa.
Then Abigail turns to Bronte, Knox, and óríon.
She pulls the sides of her mouth wide and sticks out her tongue to blow a raspberry.
“GO WYVERNS! BOO STYMPHS!” the child hollers before giving Taissa a pointed look and stomping all over her lawn back to her own home.
The scone falls from Kion’s hand to the ground.
“I hate children,” he grumbles, but somehow, Taissa doesn’t believe him.
It’s a small mercy sent by Morgana herself that Kion doesn’t mention the embarrassment of last night (had she really offered to share her bed?) as they make their way to the station and board the train bound back to Pinion-upon-Keat.
In fact, none of the Stymphs are really saying…
anything. Taissa watches as Knox opens and closes his mouth while looking at Kion.
As Bronte clears her throat but then apparently chickens out and says nothing.
The unhappy twist to Locke’s mouth tells Taissa that he’s very aware of their scrutiny.
After a half hour of this, he makes a low sound of irritation in his throat and pins the two Stymphs with a glower (óríon is listening to music with his eyes closed, fast asleep; Knox kept him up all night with bickering). “What?”
“Er—we just want to make sure that you’re okay. After, you know, yesterday,” says Knox.
“I’m fine.” He bites it out in a way that suggests the polar opposite.
“Oh, good,” says Knox, nodding fervently. “Good. That’s good.”
“We’re here if you need us,” adds Bronte, and then rolls her eyes as Kion narrows his own at her. “Oh, stop it. We didn’t want to poke and prod you last night, but we’re allowed to be worried about you. We care about you.”
“Well, then stop it,” mutters Locke, folding his arms. “I don’t enjoy it.”
Knox snorts. “Well, you’re back to your usual self, at least.”
“Cranky, cranky,” Bronte teases, but it’s clear that the duo is dropping their line of questioning.
Taissa shakes her head, glancing back down at her phone screen, where she’s been scrolling through the news, looking for updates about the “Sleeping Death,” as several outlets have dubbed the Wingeds’ affliction.
According to The UKHC MorningStar, DMC attempts to heal the Wingeds via Panaceas have yielded nothing, leaving experts (and Taissa) puzzled.
The sooner they can ring Locke’s dullahan friend, the better.
Also according to the MorningStar, handlers at all afflicted stables attested that the days leading up to the Wingeds’ illness had been normal: no concerning activity in the creatures, no changes in eating habits, nothing.
Symptoms are limited only to their comatose states.
Nobody mentions the sparkling black powder (that turns into a bloody horse).
The DMC, it seems, are as tight-lipped as ever despite Taissa’s numerous texts to Felicity Vance last night after the explosion in her sitting room.
Taissa shakes her head, looking for more articles as the train compartment grows silent, save for óríon’s soft snoring.
As she scrolls, more and more ads pop up, lagging her phone—she really needs to get an ad blocker.
Frustratedly, she attempts to scroll past them, but they only propagate in number.
Púca Púca LLC…With a Swish, We Grant Your Wish!
, Seal a Deal with Púca Púca LLC…We’re Better Than the Devil!
, and, finally, Oi, You! Stop Scrolling Past Us!
Púca Púca LLC Is Here for All Your Needs!
She rolls her eyes…and freezes when the first headline after the collection of advertisements pops up. A sharp gasp lurches from her throat as her fingers hover over the bolded words: Colum Frasier Enraged: “They Attacked Me!”
She clicks it, heart pounding hard in her chest. It’s by Complete Carriwitchet, and the very first photograph is of her old coach, his eyes flashing as he stares down the camera against a white wall.
His nose is, apparently, broken. Dried blood crusts his milk-white skin, and he’s got an impressive shiner.
Late last night, an unknown assailant—likely utilizing an Unseen glyph—attacked NCL Wyvern’s coach, Colum Frasier, as he returned from the Wyvern’s Nexitory from a late-night obligation.
“I’m furious,” Frasier tells Complete Carriwitchet. “Obviously, in this line of work, it’s a risk you take. It’s not the first time I’ve been punched in the face, and it probably won’t be the last.”
Local magistrates have opened an investigation into the assault.
“I’m grateful to the Banallan magistrates for their speedy response time,” Frasier adds (sarcastically). “It’s not like the [REDACTED] got away, or anything.”
Anyone with information is asked to call the Banallan Magistrate.
She reads the short article twice over before snapping her eyes up to Locke, who’s still looking…shifty. When she catches his eye, his neck flushes.
You didn’t, she mouths.
Hadn’t she been woken up last night? Heard her car engine starting?
Kion shrugs.
Taissa raises her eyebrows.
And although he’s barely moving his lips, she can almost hear his voice in her head, all cold and hard and steel edges as he mouths back, He fucked with my player. He got what he deserved.
Locke!
He could be arrested, or worse, officially banned from carriwitchet. Assaulting a coach (without provocation, off-field, premeditatively) would be a valid cause for his removal from the NCL. Why (truly why on earth) would the dobber risk it?
She is aghast. (There is not a disturbingly warm feeling growing in her chest.)
Taissa looks back down at the article and fights to hide a smile. She doesn’t do a very good job of it. When she peeks back up, Kion is watching her, and the corner of his mouth is tilted—ever so slightly—upward.