24 Imogen #2
Lachlan and Agatha turned left into the crowd, while Theodore and I carried on side by side, surrounded by his guards.
We dodged rushing city folk and squeezed through long lines that seemed to have no beginning and no end.
Nearly everyone wore bright, rough-spun silks that flowed and flashed as they went.
In comparison, Theodore and I looked like winter shadows haunting the edges of spring.
We wore full sailor’s regalia. Black trousers, white shirts, deep-green coats.
I glanced over at him, and though he still brooded, I smirked at the sight of him. His cheeks were unshaven, the wind in the bay had roughened his hair, and even so, he looked nothing like a common sailor. He was too removed, too straight and refined.
“You still look like a king,” I whispered to him, amused.
He kept his attention ahead, but he scratched at his stubbled cheek. “My sigil is on the soldiers’ breastplates, Imogen. This ruse can only go so far.”
We wove through the long, curving street. The smells and sounds and heat began to overwhelm, growing around me, pressing in. I latched myself to Theodore’s arm and kept close.
“Which ring would you have paid with?” he finally asked me.
I held his arm tighter. “I’m not sure,” I said, keeping my voice even. “I don’t know the value of each ring, nor the cost of gowns. But considering I am both desperate and practical, I can tell you that I would have paid with whichever ring the seller would have accepted.”
He gave a grunt, then began walking us diagonally, toward the opening of a narrow alleyway. He pulled me through and called back to his guards. “Mind the opening here.” Then he led me onto a shadowy stoop and pressed my back against the plaster wall.
He hooked his hand over the top of my trousers and held me still.
“Mine costs more,” he said, looming over me.
“I asked the stone-cutter for a ring the color of your eyes that was worth more than an Obelian spinel because I am still maddeningly jealous that slimy captain got to call himself your fiancé for any time at all, while I have to pull you into filthy alleys just for a moment to touch you.”
Heat rushed through me, despite his nonsensical logic. “You were married to me once, Theo. That’s already more than Evander.”
He grazed his lips across my cheekbone, toward my ear. “You remember, don’t you?” He lowered his head toward my lips. “How greed-riddled I am when it comes to you. More than him is still not enough.”
Slowly, he leaned in to kiss me. It was a simple, decadent contact. Only our lips. Yet my muscles, my breaths, rippled like the air on a hot day.
We’d not been alone since that night in the netting, when his mouth on my neck and breasts had made me half wild.
We’d hurried back to the stateroom when the sound of sailors drew near and we’d not had a moment alone in the three days since—not with the ship’s cabins now overcrowded, the managing and monitoring of Halla, and the collective worry over Agatha’s well-being.
“This isn’t what we’re here for.” I smiled between luxuriant kisses.
“I know.” He tipped back my chin and kissed me deeper.
Now that we were finally alone, my need for him was as powerful as my need for food and drink and air. I threaded my fingers into his thick hair, meeting his feverish attention with my own. I couldn’t know how long I’d have the opportunity to do so.
A low approving rumble in his chest, his hot lips at my jaw, the corner of my mouth, my neck. His hands grasped at the waistband of my trousers and gave a frustrated tug.
My head fell back against the wall with a groan. “Should have worn a gown.”
“I’m a devout man, Imogen,” he said, with a hint of irony. “But if you had, I would have happily profaned you against this dirty alley wall.”
He leaned in for another kiss, when the sheepish clearing of a throat pulled our attention.
One of Theodore’s guards stood in front of the stoop, eyes on the ground, sword in hand. “My apologies, Your Majesties.” Shouts and hollers rose up from the street beyond. “We need to be moving.”
Theodore craned, keeping my body behind his, to see what the commotion was. “What’s wrong?”
“It’s Della’s first voting day, Majesty. Just seems to be a dustup, but the crowds are growing…” The other guards moved in, weapons drawn, and began herding us down the alley. “This way will be safer.” The first guard said, offering me a comforting, chip-toothed grin. “Quicker too.”
He’d been right. It was no time at all before we stood in the very heart of the vibrant, messy city, looking up at an ancient tilting tower of worn stone and blackened thatch.
The guards ushered us through the tattered door, into a small, empty vestibule that was lit by a single oil lamp. It led directly to a narrow staircase, the treads dangerously steep.
The guard eyed the little room with suspicion. “We’ll come with you, then, Your Majesties?”
Both Theodore and I shook our heads. “We’ll be quick,” Theodore said.
The guard looked stern, positioning himself at the base of the stairs. “You’d best be, my king. We’ll be listening for your call. When you’re done, we return straight to the ship.”
My hands grew damp as we started up the stairs.
The air here was stale, dry. We stopped on the first landing and lingered, letting our eyes adjust to the dark.
There was nothing here either. Just empty walls, well-trod floors, and the thinnest beam of light cutting though a boarded-up window.
All it illuminated was a proliferation of dust.
The both of us stepped lightly, listening intently, but the place was uncomfortably still. The whole tower had a spirt of disuse about it, the way old, forgotten things gave off an uncanny sort of loneliness.
“Do Dellens not visit here?” I whispered. “It looks like no one has come through this place in years.”
Theodore led me up the next flight. “No one goes to a Mage Seer unless they must.”
Magic and its cost were certainly awful, but I had to imagine it had its uses for the common Leucosian. It could accomplish things that Gods’ power couldn’t. It was a shame that the horror of the Mage Seers kept those who needed their help from seeking it.
At the top of the stairs, I glanced to Theodore beside me and pulled him to a stop. “Take off your coat.”
His fingers went instantly to his top button. “You want to… Here?”
“Bloody Gods.” I shoved his shoulder. “No. You look too… striking.” Quickly, I started on the brass buttons down the front of his coat.
He looked dejected as he pulled it off. “Imogen, she’s bound to figure out who I am.”
“She might.” I mussed his hair further and opened the first button of his billowing shirt. “But we don’t have to give it away the second you walk through her door.” I pulled back to look at him. Better, but still devastatingly, magnificently dignified. “Gods, Theo, can you slump?”
He did his best, attempting to slope his shoulders and sink his strong chest, when a loud rustling, like the wind shaking through a wood, filled the stairwell.
I stopped cold. “What was that?”
Theodore was utterly still, his voice hushed with dread. “I don’t know.”
A shiver racked me as we kept moving up the stairs.
“Fucking Mages,” I mumbled. Eventually, after a few more flights, a line of bright light slashed the darkness above us.
We arrived at a small landing before an unusually narrow door.
The half dozen windows in the landing were merely thin slits in the rock, crudely chipped away by hammer and chisel.
We paused a moment, side by side. Theodore took my hand. “Don’t lock me out this time.”
A shadow of dread passed over me—there was no way I was going in alone. “Promise.”
I gave two quick raps on the door. We waited, my ears ringing in the silence, until finally, the door creaked open on its own, sending an eerie metalic cry into the dusty air.
Theodore crossed the threshold first, turning sideways to fit through the jamb.
My legs trembled as I followed. The round room was silent, and hardly any of the bright sunlight could break through the grimy, rippling glass of its three high windows.
It looked abandoned, the uneven wood floor strewn with old books and crates.
The shelves on the far wall were stocked with little bottles and veiled in a thick layer of cobwebs.
I looked up toward the rafters and shuddered at the large white orbs of spider egg sacs hanging like fruit on a tree.
I had begun to inch us closer to the shelves when the sound of someone’s inhale filled the room. The breath was a deep, thoughtful drag, as if whoever had taken it was scenting the air.
“A visitor?” It was the sweet ringing voice of a young girl, her tone as bright as the day that fought through the windows.
My fingers dug into Theodore’s arm. “Y-yes.” I swallowed hard. “Two visitors, actually.”
“I know.” The girl’s words held a sharp-edged smile.
“Oh.” I shifted slightly on my feet, but Theodore had gone stone still. “I’ve… I have come for a severing draught,” I said. “But perhaps you knew that already too.”
A rustling sounded from the middle of the room and I thought of Rohana’s vines, but there was nary a plant, dead or alive, in the dusty room. “I couldn’t know that,” she said, exasperated. “I cannot know what’s in your mind until you let me in.”
Anxiety yanked through me like a tow line.
“Before we start,” she said, “are you aware of the cost?”
“Oh, I…” My hands were shaking. “I’ve been told it’s a drop of my blood for the draught. Flesh and hair as payment.”
“Oh ho!” She was amused. “You’ve been to Rohana, then? That’s curious.”
Theodore stiffened further as my stomach plummeted. My scheme was nearly up before it had even begun. “Not so curious,” I said, lightly. “I went for a prophecy when I was on Varya. Years ago. It was that prophecy that brought me to you.”
More rustling. “And what did your prophecy tell you?”
I straightened my spine, trying to force more ease into my words. “That my blood bond would be ill-fated.”