21. Close Quarters
V iola was tumbling through the dark, limbs flailing like she was encased in a cage of dry water. It was like being swallowed, folded inwards. Seconds later—before she could even draw a breath—she found herself being vomited out onto some dark corner of the lawns, Nicodemus gripping onto her.
“What the fuck was that?” she spat, her breath rough and ragged.
Nicodemus groaned, slumping against her.
“Nightshade!” she hissed in the dark. “Are you injured?”
“Not… injured…”
His entire weight fell against her. Viola lowered him to the ground as gently as she could. He was panting hard, his breath quick. She checked him over for wounds, just in case he didn’t know, or was too confused to evaluate the damage. Heindrich had been wounded in battle once. He was adamant he didn’t have an arrow in his back until after the healer had yanked it out.
No cuts, no contusions. No broken bones she could discern. His mask was slightly askew. She went to remove it, barely thinking—
“Anyone down here?” called a voice.
Viola froze. There was nowhere to hide him. If anyone came round the corner, they were going to find Nicodemus sprawled out on the lawn, and whilst his mask might conceal his identity for a little while longer, the minute they dragged him to a healer it was certain to be removed, and whatever was under there …
She stood up abruptly, and, thinking quickly, spread her voluminous skirts over him.
A knight turned the corner. Flameborn.
“Windbright,” he said, breathing a sigh of relief, “I thought it was you. Are you unhurt?”
“Fine,” she said, forcing herself to pant. Partly to cover the sound of Nicodemus’ breathing, and partly to give herself a reason not to move. “Just… catching my breath.”
“I’m not surprised! You flew after that thing. Wind by name and wind by nature, huh?”
“There’s… there’s a downed tree…” she said, pointing far away. “Might still be… flaming.”
“You’ll be fine?”
“Aren’t I always?”
He snorted, taking the hint, and hurried off into the darkness. Viola waited until he’d vanished completely before tugging her skirts off Nicodemus and crouching down on the ground beside him.
“Are you all right?” she asked.
“Did you just hide me under your skirts?”
“No,” she lied, slapping his face to keep him conscious. “What’s wrong with you?”
“Folding in and out of shadows? Not easy. Harder with a tagalong and not much light… I’ve tapped myself dry.”
Viola’s gaze fell to the natural shadows around his form. They were still and inert. She couldn’t remember if she’d ever seen them that way. They were always a little different, a little out of sync from his body. It was like looking at a fish as it gasped for breath on land.
“If someone saw you—”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” he murmured, “was I supposed to let the flaming tree fall on you?”
Viola faltered. It was never easy to hear someone else had hurt themselves helping you. You should have let it fall on me, she realised. He absolutely should have let her perish, the same way she should have called the guards the minute she met him inside the palace, and had instinctively dragged him out into the gardens instead. “Can you stand?”
Nicodemus groaned, as if there was nothing in the world he’d rather do less.
Voices shouted nearby. More people were flocking into the gardens to examine the damage. It was only a matter of time before—
“Nicodemus!”
His eyes blinked, bleary and bloodshot. “With help, probably. ”
Viola stood, offering up her arm. He stumbled into her, his arm around her shoulder. She held him at the waist, most of his weight still on her.
He could have died, she realised. He would die, if she didn’t get him away from this place. He was powerless.
And he had done this for her. Of course she couldn’t leave him.
“Going to escort me home, Windbright?” he asked as they hobbled across the lawns. “How gallant of you.”
“If I take you home, you’ll probably fall off halfway over the Feywood…”
“Where are we going?”
“The barracks. Try not to get too excited.”
They made their way towards the stables, Nicodemus struggling to stay conscious. Thankfully, the knights kept their mounts in a separate stable to the guests, and no one was around to question them, all too busy dealing with the fire.
She directed Nicodemus to Blackberry’s stall and had the hippogriff sit for him, helping him into the saddle. He grabbed her arm as she was settling him into position.
“Why are you helping me?”
Viola swallowed. “I’m meant to help people, not hurt them,” she told him. “Besides, you did rather save my life again, so… it would be rude to hand you over now.”
“Not going soft on me, then?”
“On you? Never.” She climbed up after him, glad that the knight’s saddles were made extra wide precisely for situations such as this. “Clutch onto his feathers,” she instructed. “But not too tightly or he’ll buck us both off.”
Nicodemus held firm to Blackberry’s feathers as Viola slid her arms around him and grabbed the reins, directing the mount out of the stables kicking off from the ground. Nicodemus lurched forward.
“You all right?” she asked.
“My wyverns are smoother.”
“We’ll be there soon.”
It was a short fly until they reached the Knight’s Island, padding down in the field next to the stables. The hands were having their own party nearby, and no one noticed Viola slip into one of the stalls to lodge Blackberry for the night.
Nicodemus was leaning against the side of the stable when she emerged, staring at his hands, twirling his fingers as though trying to summon shadow. There was enough light here burning in the lanterns for him to make them. Viola imagined the sensation was like running into battle without sword or armour, or perhaps something more than that—like a warrior robbed of their prosthetic, something that was a part of them .
It was only temporary, of course, but it was never nice to feel exposed.
“Come on,” she said, looping his arm over her shoulders again.
He’d foregone his cane this evening, a fact he was clearly regretting. Luckily, it was a short walk to her room, and the corridors dark and silent.
This is insane, she thought. She was walking Nicodemus Nightshade into a place full of people sworn to kill him.
But where else could she take him? She didn’t think he would fare well on a long flight, and it was a good distance to his castle. She could try to find him a room at a tavern somewhere, but if someone did suspect what he was, he’d be defenceless… and linked to her.
Besides which, he looked like he needed rest now. They couldn’t go flying through the city trying to find somewhere with room.
No, here was safest. No one had ever had a clear look at his face. No one would suspect a thing. She’d been known back to bring overnight guests from time to time before Freya. A rather buxom tavern wench, a visiting squire from another port… no one who she’d still have to see on a regular occurrence when the night was over.
No one would bat an eye if they saw him.
Silently, they slipped into her room. Nicodemus sat down on the immaculate bed and cast his gaze over the place as she turned on the lanterns and rooted about for supplies.
“This is your room?” he remarked.
“Yes.”
“It’s… tidy.”
“We can’t all live in castles in the woods, Nightshade.”
“I said nothing.”
“Your expression did.”
“I am wearing a mask…”
Viola handed him an energy-boosting potion. “Don’t take too much,” she reminded him, echoing the healer’s instructions every time she dished it out. There was no need to overdo it here when he wasn’t running for his life.
Nicodemus took a small sip, lying back against the pillows. He winced as he lifted up his leg.
Viola dug into her supplies and handed him a small vial of painkiller. “Go on,” she said. “I know your leg is troubling you; you don’t have to pretend.”
Nicodemus sighed, necking back the contents of the vial and glancing around him as the effects took hold. “Do you have a spare bedroll somewhere? ”
“I do not.”
“Right, well…” He shifted upright, as if he was gallantly going to suggest sleeping on the floor, despite how exhausted he was and his clear need for a proper bed.
“It’s a big bed, Nightshade. I’m sure you can keep your shadows to yourself. I have spare blankets too.”
“Good. That’s good.”
Viola turned to the bottom drawer of her dresser to remove the extra blankets she had there, dividing the bed into sections. The back of her neck heated at the thought of the proximity.
You’ve shared beds with people before, she reminded herself. This is more like camping anyway.
The sound of someone running hurtled down the corridor, and a second later, a frantic-looking Freya burst into the room, still in her palace garb of rich plum. Her usually immaculate braid was in disarray, her cheeks red and chafed. She looked like she’d run all the way from the palace.
“Viola, I heard that you—” Freya stopped, noticing Nicodemus on the bed.
Viola’s heart sank. Instinctively, she held out an arm, as if to cover him from view. Too late, of course. Far, far too late.
“Frey—” Viola began.
Freya swallowed, turned on her heels, and vanished into the corridor.
Viola ran after her, the door banging shut behind them. “Freya, it’s not—”
But how else could she explain it? She’d been prepared for something like this, was relying on everyone thinking it was exactly what it looked like.
“It’s fine!” Freya said, not meeting her gaze. “You can do whatever you like with whoever you like. It’s got nothing to do with me!”
The tremble in her voice dug into Viola like a garrote. “I know,” she replied. “But I also know it’s not fine, either. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”
“For me to burst in here because I was worried about you? Of course you didn’t.”
“I didn’t mean to worry anyone.”
“You never mean to worry people. You never mean to hurt them, either. And yet you keep doing both.”
Her words fell against Viola’s chest like an onslaught of arrows. “I’m—”
The word sorry seemed to have lost its meaning, and Freya knew it too.
“Forget it,” Freya said swiftly, moving further down the corridor. “Have a good night. ”
Viola waited until she’d disappeared from view before wordlessly slinking back into her room. Nicodemus was perched on the edge of the bed, his face pale and tightly set. “Girlfriend?”
“Ex-girlfriend,” Viola corrected.
“Did you two just—”
“No. We broke up a while back.”
“Ah.”
“What would you have done if we hadn’t?”
“A clever bit of lie work, I hope. It usually works. Perhaps I’d pretend to be a marvellously drunk noble who’d bribed you to hide him from his husband.”
“I can’t imagine that.”
“What, me as a noble? I’ll have you know I do an excellent impression—”
“I meant you finding anyone desperate enough to marry you.”
Nicodemus clutched his chest. “That hurts, Windbright.”
“I’m sure it does.” She stood before her vanity, taking the pins out of her hair while Nicodemus fussed with the blankets, not looking anywhere in particular as she shucked off her dress and stepped out of her petticoats. The beautiful fabric was stained with ash and soot, parts of the skirt singed away. Viola had no idea if it was fixable or even if it was worth fixing—where would she ever wear it again?
Nicodemus removed his jacket as she sat down on the bed, adding it to the pile on the floor along with his boots. He barely moved as she sagged against the pillows.
She swallowed. His throat bobbed. “I’ll leave at first light,” he said quickly. “I should have my energy back by then.”
“Right. Of course.” She inclined her face towards him, startled by their proximity and the gold still staring back at her. “Your mask…”
“What of it?”
“Are you going to sleep in it?”
Nicodemus opened his mouth to reply, only fell short, like he’d half forgotten that there was even a mask between them or perhaps he just didn’t know how to reply.
Slowly, he shook his head.
Viola reached across, placing her hands against his cheeks, to the place where silk met skin. Nico didn’t recoil. He didn’t push her away. He let out a small, almost imperceptible sigh, and then rather than shudder, he softened into her touch like a candle melted under a gentle flame. She raised an eyebrow, seeking confirmation, permission to reveal the whole thing.
Nico swallowed, then nodded .
Carefully, she lifted it away, discarding it on the floor. She’d caught glimpses of his face before, a shadow on his pale flesh in the dark, but this was the first time she’d truly seen it in the light, so close her breath could have ghosted it.
It was quite unlike any other mark or scar she’d ever seen before. It was like his face was a broken piece of pottery that someone had painstakingly glued back together, only the glue was stained with ink. Black, spidery lines crossed over his eye, cheek and temple.
Her first thought was that they were oddly beautiful.
Her second was that it must have hurt.
“What happened?” she asked.
“A building fell on me,” he replied. “Caught some debris in the left eye and leg.”
“But the lines—”
“I couldn’t exactly seek medical assistance,” he explained. “So I stitched myself together with shadows. I had to keep them in for a while. This was the result.”
Viola’s breath hitched, her throat grating. She did not want to imagine what that would feel like, the cold needles of the shadow winding through muscle and skin.
“Was this when… when you were…” she began.
“When I was thirteen? Yes.”
It was hard to imagine Nico as anything other than he was—confident and clever, strong and skilled—but she imagined him now, smaller and slimmer, almost frail, crawling out of a ruin, broken and bleeding.
She didn’t like the image at all. It made her want to fling herself back in time and stop the building from falling, or at least get him out of there once it was over. Anything to make sure he didn’t have to be alone.
Pain was easier to shoulder with someone beside you, if you let them carry the load. At least, she thought it might be. She’d never tried to hand hers to someone else. How could she? They were her family, no one else’s. No one else lost a mother and father and brother and sister that day. No one else had lost them . So who could she turn to in her grief? Even her remaining relatives hadn’t loved or needed them in the way she had. Nothing her grandparents or Heindrich could say would convince her that they missed them the way she did. Sometimes, Viola wondered if she’d been selfish in her grief, keeping them to herself. Other times, she wondered if she shouldered the pain alone simply because the pain was all she had left of them.
Conscious of the intensity of her gaze—and feeling flushed under his—Viola turned away from Nicodemus, staring up at the ceiling and wondering if she should just turn down the lanterns and pretend nothing had happened. But she didn’t. She couldn’t. Not after that.
“How many people have seen your face since then?” she asked.
“Just Cordelia,” he admitted. “I did have concealment cream I bought from a witch that I’d use when I was forced into town, but I ran out a while ago.”
Thirteen years. Thirteen years, and only two people had ever seen his real face. Viola imagined living that long under a mask.
“Why did you lie?” she asked. “About your face, I mean, when we first met?”
“I did not lie. You asked if it hid some ghastly deformity, and I said, ‘don’t you think it adds to my villainous aesthetic?’ It very much does.”
“I’m fairly sure I didn’t use the words ‘ghastly deformity’—”
“Semantics.”
“It isn’t, by the way.”
“What isn’t what?”
“It isn’t… you know… ghastly. It’s just a scar. I’ve a few of those myself.”
Nicodemus’ gaze remained fix on the ceiling,
“Can you still see out of your left eye?”
“Not as well as I’d like,” he admitted, his voice very quiet.
Perhaps that was why he hadn’t shown her—he was simply hiding a weakness he expected her to exploit. But then she thought about the way he’d angled his face away from her that night they met in the corridor, and she thought that maybe it was something else, more human. Embarrassment.
“Do you truly not think it’s hideous?”
She shook her head, turning once more to her side, and rolled up her sleeve. There was a ragged scar on her forearm from one of her earliest missions. Healers could fix most surface damage, but she didn’t get to see one until almost a week after the injury. By then it had started to scar.
She held hers up to his, so close that they almost touched. He reached out and grabbed her hand as if afraid of the contact, only he didn’t let go. He stared at the scar on her wrist.
“Mine’s worse,” he said eventually, dropping his hand away.
“It’s not a competition.”
“Isn’t that what you and I do? Compete?”
He was grinning now. Viola didn’t realise how much she’d missed it. “Some things are better not to compare,” she told him, her gaze still ensnared by that irritating smirk of his. “Pain is one of them.”