Chapter 14 #2
The smile started as a small thing, just a curve of Edith’s lips. But then Edith was beaming at her, and Thomasin thought she’d let Edith paint whatever nonsense on her face that Edith wanted if it meant Edith would keep looking at her like that.
The murder in Edith’s eyes as she stared up at Thomasin the next evening was just as satisfying, though.
Thomasin had her pinned with a firm hold on her wrist, twisting her arm at an unnatural angle.
Her good arm, of course. She pushed hard enough to make it twinge, but she couldn’t bring herself to really make Edith hurt.
Which was foolish, because that was the best way to learn self-defense—with real pain and real stakes.
But Thomasin had learned her lesson with the axe-murdering stunt.
Edith struggled against her hold, round cheeks reddening with effort.
Her hair had fallen from its elaborate updo of pinned curls and loops atop her head.
Thomasin liked seeing her undone. A messy curtain of sand-colored strands framed her face, and beads of sweat dotted her hairline.
Thomasin thought she should wear it like this more often.
It was true to the wild lunatic she knew lurked beneath Edith’s composed and proper exterior.
A groan of frustration fell from Edith’s lips, and then her shoulders slumped as much as they could in her current position. “I give up. You win—again.”
“I don’t accept,” Thomasin said casually. “Your left arm is free. Use it.”
“My left arm is injured,” Edith grumbled.
“Oh, now it’s injured. Funny how that works, because you’re the one who’s been swearing up and down that it’s perfectly healed.”
With a pout of her lower lip, Edith blew a strand of hair out of her eyes.
“C’mon, you’re not going to muscle your way out of this. Your brain is your advantage, so think.”
“I think you’re overestimating me.” Edith’s neck craned to shoot Thomasin a wry look. “I’m really not that smart.”
“You’re brilliant and you know it,” Thomasin shot back.
Edith just rolled her eyes, looking back down at the ground.
Perhaps she didn’t know it, which was a terrible shame in Thomasin’s opinion.
If Thomasin were as smart as Edith, she’d flaunt it constantly.
But if Edith truly didn’t see herself that way, then Thomasin was more than happy to lend a hand.
“Take a deep breath,” she ordered.
“What?” Frustration made Edith more belligerent than Thomasin thought possible. She was learning that Edith really did not like losing.
“You’re flustered. You need to center yourself and then decide on a course of action. Being weak or slow is not the thing that gets you killed. It’s fear. The second you let yourself get scared, you’ll start making mistakes.”
After another moment of fruitless struggle, Edith took an overly dramatic breath. Really more of a petulant huff. “I still don’t know what to do.”
“Edith.” All Thomasin received in reply was a sullen glare. She had to swallow her smile as she said, “You’re not a very good student.”
“I’m trying!”
“Flailing and trying are not the same thing. Listen to me and take a breath. A real one,” she scolded when Edith took another exaggerated huff. Thomasin breathed deeply in example. On the third breath, Edith finally joined in. “Okay, now what can you reach with your left hand?”
Edith scanned the ground in front of where she kneeled.
Her borrowed knife that she had started the sparring session with lay at the base of a tree, uselessly out of reach.
There were no rocks or pointy sticks in range either.
She reached across her body and tried to pry off Thomasin’s fingers from where they wrapped around her bicep but gave up quickly.
“Think, Edith,” Thomasin coached. A smile stretched across her face as Edith reached backward, the tips of her fingers ghosting across Thomasin’s outer thigh.
Edith’s hand stilled when it found the buckle of one of her sheaths.
With clumsy fingers, Edith undid the buckle and drew one of Thomasin’s daggers.
She twisted around and held the point of the dagger to Thomasin’s stomach.
“There, you’re dead,” Edith said.
Thomasin released her arm, and Edith rubbed it as the blood rushed back into the limb. “Good job.” Thomasin smiled down at her.
“If you were really trying to kill me, though, you would have stopped me when you felt me fishing around for a dagger,” Edith said.
“We can work on pickpocketing later. And for future reference, the back of my knee would have been a better target than my liver.”
“You? Without a liver? Your flask is like your most prized possession.”
“You’re not wrong,” Thomasin admitted after a beat. Edith laughed, and Thomasin led them back to the fire at the center of camp.
Her good mood threw itself off a cliff when she saw Worthing hunched in front of the flames.
He took the squirrel bone he had been gnawing on out of his mouth long enough to say, “We’ll reach the destination by midday tomorrow.
Tell me, how many more random places are you going to drag us to before you make her pay up? ”
“This is only the second one,” Edith said defensively. Thomasin shot her a look, and she sank onto a log.
Thomasin weighed her response. Did she believe the treasure hunt was a wild goose chase that would inevitably end in disappointment? Yes. But it didn’t hurt anyone for them to stay in the world of quests and treasure for a while longer.
Well, it hurt the syndicate, Thomasin supposed. But she had given them everything. Surely she was due a little vacation. As long as she kept Worthing here, where he couldn’t organize a coup, the syndicate would be waiting for her when she was ready to go back to her normal life.
“Fuck off, Worthing,” Thomasin said, settling on the ground next to Edith, “and let us get some rest. We have a big day of treasure hunting tomorrow.”