Chapter 18 #2
"You don't have to explain." He stands, drops coins on the table. "I'm just saying. You've got the instincts for this. The debt shit is whatever Koshin needs it to be. But this?" He gestures at the space where Einar was sitting. "This you're actually good at."
My mouth opens. Closes.
All those years of reading people. Knowing what face to wear. Lying to survive.
It translates. Apparently.
Wonderful. My one marketable skill is being a manipulative bitch. Really rounding out the résumé nicely.
The walk back feels different.
Not safer. Safety isn't a thing that exists for me anymore. But something in my shoulders has unclenched.
"He actually believed the eastern dock thing," I say. "There's no cache there, is there?"
"There is now." Renan sounds amused. "We placed it two days ago. Sealed crates. Very official looking. War's going to find Faith soldiers breaking in within the week, and suddenly there's a whole new conflict we didn't have to manufacture."
"What's in the crates?"
"Turnips."
I stop walking. "Turnips."
"Koshin wanted to do potatoes, but I thought turnips were funnier." He shrugs. "We painted little faces on some of them. Gave them names."
"You—" I press my fingers to my temples. "Faith and War are going to start a conflict over root vegetables with faces."
"To be fair, they won't know that until they've already killed each other over access." His mouth twitches. "The turnips are just a bonus. For us. Specifically."
"That's—" I let out a breath. "Horrifying. But impressive."
"Discord in a nutshell."
"I thought you were just—" I wave my hand. "Violence and chaos."
"Violence and chaos are the symptoms." He steers us down a side street. "The cause is information. Knowing things. Using what you know to make people act how you want."
"So I'm living in a house of professional liars who manipulate people for fun."
"And turnip-based psychological warfare. Don't forget the turnips."
"I'm trying to."
"You can't. They have names now. They're family."
I choke on a laugh.
Horrifying.
This is all horrifying.
Why is it also a little funny?
We walk in silence for a few steps. The streets are busier now, late morning crowds moving through markets.
"He's really not going to hurt me," I say. Don't know why I say it. Don't know why I need to hear the answer.
Renan's step doesn't falter. "Not on purpose."
"Wow. That's incredibly reassuring. Thank you. I feel so safe now."
"You asked."
"I was hoping for a comforting lie."
"Wrong House for that." He smirks.
"Try Faith. They're great at comforting lies. It's basically their whole thing."
I snort. Fair.
"He's obsessed with you," Renan says, like he's commenting on the weather. "Obsession isn't safe. Isn't stable. You can't stop it. You can only decide how hard you're going to hit the ground."
"That's poetic. Do you write greeting cards in your spare time? 'Congratulations on your inevitable destruction, may your landing be swift.'"
"I'm considering it. There's a gap in the market."
Koshin's hands on my face this morning. The way he mapped my pulse. The shake in his fingers.
"He touched my hair yesterday. Like it was the most precious thing in the world. And then five minutes later he was promising to destroy anyone who looked at me wrong."
"That tracks."
"How is that—how do you live with that?"
Renan's laugh is unexpected. Genuine. "You're asking me? I'm not the one in his bed."
"You're his best friend. His brother, basically. You've lived with him for years it seems."
"Living with him and being the focus of his attention are very different things." Renan's smile has gone crooked. "I've been around long enough that he knows exactly how I tick. No mystery left. You're new. You're a puzzle he hasn't solved yet. That's not the same experience."
"So once he figures me out, the intensity stops?"
"Did I say that?" He laughs. "No. Then he just finds new ways to be unhinged about you. It evolves. Like a disease."
"Lovely."
"At least you're not boring. He's had boring fixations before. Those end badly."
"This is ending well?"
"You're still breathing. By Discord standards, that's a love story."
My face goes hot. "I'm going to push you into traffic."
"You'd miss me."
"I absolutely would not."
"You'd miss having someone to be horrified with. Koshin doesn't count. He is the horror."
...He's not wrong. That's the worst part.
We turn down another street. The entrance to Discord's manor sits where it always does—a stone archway carved into the street, stairs descending into the dark. No signage. No guards visible. Just a hole in the ground that swallows you whole.
Living underground shouldn't feel normal yet. But here I am, walking toward a subterranean lair with a man who paints faces on turnips, and somehow this is just... Tuesday.
"You did well today," Renan says. Not looking at me. "Koshin's going to be—" He stops. Considers. "He's going to have feelings about it."
"Feelings."
"Proud. Possessive. Probably jealous that you spent time with me and not him. The usual cocktail of things that would get a mortal institutionalized."
"Great. Can't wait. Love that for me."
"Welcome to Discord." He pushes open the gate. "Where nothing is stable and everything is personal."
"You should put that on a banner."
"We had one. Koshin set it on fire."
"Of course he did."
"In his defense, it was a really ugly banner."
"Was it?"
"No. It was fine. He just felt like burning something that day."
I stare at him.
He shrugs. "Told you.”
Koshin is waiting in the entrance hall.
He's clean—changed clothes, washed the blood off, though I can still see traces of it in the creases of his knuckles. His eyes lock onto me the second we walk through the door.
Then they move to Renan.
Then back to me.
His jaw tightens. Just a fraction.
"Einar is taken care of," Renan says, dropping onto a bench like he lives there. "He bought everything we fed him. War and Faith should be clawing each other's eyes out by next week. You're welcome."
Koshin doesn't respond. He's watching us—the space between us, the way we're standing. I realize, too late, that I was laughing at something Renan said as we walked in.
I was comfortable.
He noticed.
"Your mortal's got teeth, by the way." Renan's grin is playful. "Played Einar like a cheap fiddle. Didn't even break a sweat."
Koshin's nostrils flare. "Is that so?"
"Could've fooled me if I didn't know better. That whole pathetic-starving-girl act? Flawless. Really committed to the bit." He tilts his head, watching Koshin's face. "You should take her out more often. She's wasted sitting around here."
He's poking the bear. He knows exactly what he's doing.
"Thank you, Renan." Clipped. "That will be all."
"Will it?" Renan stands, stretching like a cat. "Right. I'll leave you two to... whatever this is about to be." He throws me a look—half warning, half amusement—and disappears down a corridor.
Leaving me alone with Koshin.
He doesn't move. Just stands there, stillness radiating off him in waves.
"You were laughing."
"What?"
"When you came in. You were laughing. With him."
Oh, for fuck's sake.
"We were joking about turnips. It wasn't—"
"You're comfortable with him now."
Not quite accusation. Not quite question. Something worse.
"I spent half the day pretending to be a starving peasant girl for your spy games," I say. "Forgive me for finding some humor in root vegetables with painted faces afterward."
His eyes narrow. "The turnips have faces?"
"Renan named them. Apparently there's a Gregory."
Something flickers across his expression—confusion, maybe. I've derailed whatever jealous spiral he was building. Good.
He crosses to me. His hand comes up, tilting my chin so I have to meet his eyes.
"You did well." Quiet. Intense. "Renan doesn't compliment people. If he says you have teeth, you have teeth."
"Great. I'll add it to my resume. 'Has teeth. Good at pretending to be pathetic.'"
His mouth twitches. Almost a smile. "You're not just the debt that I stole."
My pulse kicks. "What am I, then?"
His thumb traces my eyebrow.
"Useful," he says finally. "Capable. Mine." His grip tightens. "But also... more."
The tavern. The way I slipped into that role without effort. Made myself small and hungry and desperate. Einar looking at me and seeing exactly what I wanted him to see.
I've been doing that my whole life. Being what people need me to be. The difference is I usually hated every second of it.
Today I didn't.
That's either growth or a warning sign. Possibly both.
"I didn't hate it," I admit. "The work."
Something lights up in his face—pride and possession and that hunger, all tangled together in a way that should terrify me more than it does.
"Good," he says. "Because there will be more."
He pulls me closer. Arms around me, hands splayed across my back, face buried in my hair. Breathing me in.
I let myself sink into it. Just for a minute. Just because my feet hurt and I spent four hours being someone else and his arms are warm and I'm tired.
That's the only reason.
Shut up.
"Don't laugh with him like that," he murmurs against my hair. "Not when I'm not there."
I pull back. "You're jealous. Of Renan. Your best friend. Who spent the whole day making fun of me."
"I didn't say it was rational."
"It's insane."
"Yes."
"Don't do it anyway."
"That's—" I stop. Breathe. "You can't just tell me not to laugh with people."
"I know."
"It's controlling and possessive and completely unreasonable."
"I know."
"And you're asking anyway."
His arms tighten. That edge of desperation—the fear of losing, the need to hold. "Yes."
I should argue. Should push back. Should establish some goddamn boundaries like a person with self-respect.
Instead I hear myself say: "You're exhausting."
"I know."
"This isn't a yes."
"It's not a no either." His voice is rough. "I'll take it."
We stand there in the entrance hall, his arms around me, my face pressed against his chest. His heartbeat is too fast. Mine probably is too.
I'm not just surviving anymore. I'm... participating. In whatever this is. Spy games and painted turnips and a mad god who gets jealous when I laugh with his best friend.
My life has gotten very weird.