Chapter 3
Reva
Ineed to run.
Just like the dozens of times before, my internal alarm bells are blaring, telling me I am not safe here. As my mother drilled into me as a pup, ignoring your instincts is how you end up with your skin nailed to a sorcerer’s wall after they’ve plucked out your eyeballs and turned them into soup.
And if that fishy fuck was willing to assault me over a few coins, that makes him a serious, unpredictable threat. So I have two choices: fight or flee.
The two instincts battle inside me as I pace from one end of the kitchen to the other, while Mag watches on. His expression only softens once Frannie steps out of her workshop, coming to a sharp halt when she catches sight of me and my panicked pacing.
“What’s going on?” She turns to Mag. “What has you charging in here with your blood pressure sky-high?”
“I’m an orc, Francesca. My kin are ancient warriors. We don’t have problems with our blood pressure.”
“Tell that to the pulsing vein in your forehead,” Frannie mutters. I fail to fully stifle my snort of amusement, earning me a glare from Mag.
“Just having a minor breakdown over here,” I explain with a frazzled smile. “How would you feel about going really, really far away from here and starting a whole new life?”
Her eyebrows quirk. “What are you talking about?” She strides closer, peering down at me with a furrowed brow. “Why are you having a breakdown after midnight on a Tuesday? What happened?”
I scrunch up my face and rub my grinding jaw with my bruised fingers before filling her in on all the details from my visit to the pub.
“So.” She levels me with a stern look and then speaks slowly as she lays it all out for me, “There’s a man who threatened to out you to the authorities and this entire village is full of pieces of shit who’d sell anyone if they suspected it’d earn them a coin or two, me and you included.
” She prods the open hearth with a poker, sending sparks flying before she adds another log to the fire.
“He knows that you have some dodgy income streams,” she continues. “But is there anything else he knows about you that might get you into trouble?”
Does he know that I’m beast-borne scum, she means. Or worse, does he know I’m a selkie.
I glance at Mag, the only person in this room who doesn’t know my most closely kept secret. “He may have noticed I was, er, slightly stronger than I should be. All that spinach we eat, you know?”
The answering look she gives me would be enough to strip paint, and my heart pounds harder.
Frannie might not be beast-borne, but she is a flame ogre.
A six-and-a-half foot tall, black-haired ogre with skin the colour of fading embers and iris-less eyes that are entirely made up of huge black pupils.
If my kind are seen as being classless and barbaric, hers are seen as mindless brutes. Monsters they use as cautionary tales to scare their children.
And sure, they mostly used to live in caves and had a reputation for eating whatever people they came across, but her people are formidable. Fierce and, thankfully, unfailingly loyal to their people.
Exactly who you want on your team, whatever the occasion.
“So much spinach,” she replies drily. “So he has a few reasons he might be back. Either with the authorities in tow, or alone if he thinks it’s worth extorting you.”
“Right.” I nod, then nod again. Within about thirty seconds, I’ve mentally mapped my route to grab my bag, and my skin, and counted the pairs of underwear and shirts I have available right now.
My palms are sweating and, for some reason, I’m still wearing my coat. When I throw it off my shoulders, a cloth bag rolls onto the floor with a clatter.
Mr Fishy’s possibly cursed safe.
Oops. I must have accidentally pocketed it earlier.
“This was what started all the trouble.” I say, plopping it onto the table. “What do you reckon, real or fake?”
Frannie plucks it up with her bare hands, eyeing it closely. “Hard to say. These sigils look like witch work, so I wouldn’t want to mess with them too much. Looks like it might have a curse on it, even if it’s solid gold.”
She pulls the screaming kettle from the hearth, again with her bare hands, and pours boiling water into a teapot. She then takes the seat opposite me, giving Mag a casual once-over before handing him a mug.
She’s grinning. Why is she grinning?
“Are you planning on paying a visit to your cursebreaker friend over in Port Yarrow?” she says. At my answering nod, she slams a hand onto the tabletop. “Well then, who better to take care of anything valuable you don’t want anyone getting their hands on. We’ll take the boat.”
Boat? What boat? Whenever I need to get anywhere by water, I just use Noush.
But I suppose it isn’t a good idea to be a seal swimming in these waters at the moment, not if the authorities are likely to be swarming the place.
I cast my mind to the rickety rowing boat that’s stored behind Frannie’s workshop under a tarp and a heap of scrap metal.
“It’s not been used in a few months, but I’m sure it’s still seaworthy,” she says. “Now, drink your tea.”
I’m barely keeping up here. But Frannie’s sitting there, just waiting for me to put two and two together.
Kit is not just a cursebreaker. He’s also the only other person who knows about my skin. And he is very good at taking care of valuable things.
I jump to my feet and wrap my arms around her neck, clinging there like a barnacle on a sea turtle. “You’re a genius, Frannie. Talk about thinking on your feet.”
“We’ll set up the old wards on the house too. That way, if the smelly dickhead shows up while we’re gone, we’ll know.” There’s a devilish gleam in her eye. “And then—”
Mag clears his throat. “He doesn’t know where you live, does he?”
Frannie gives a dismissive snort, tossing her head back. “Two minutes in your horrible, horrible pub and he’d have that information in a heartbeat.”
A tendril of guilt sprouts in my gut. If Mr Fishy comes back and causes trouble, there’s every chance Frannie might get caught up in it even though she’s managed to live here quietly for the past few years.
Mag’s shoulders climb up to his ears, and he opens his mouth as if to argue, but then seems to think better of it. “True enough. And you’re going somewhere... by boat?” I watch his throat bob as he swallows hard.
I wouldn’t say I know him all that well, but I do know that Mag’s not a fan of the water.
Frannie ignores him entirely. “What do you think?” she asks me. “We can be out of the way if he returns and then—” She rubs her hands together gleefully. “We can see if the wards on this old place still hold up.”
Frannie leaps to her feet, bustling out the door as though her ideas can no longer stay in her head without her taking action.
I’m then left with Mag, who’s glaring a hole into the side of my head.
“You need to be careful, Reva. It’s not just you who lives here,” Mag says sternly.
My gut twists again. As much as she barely seems to notice his existence, Mag’s always had a soft spot for my friend and roommate. The way he talks about her, it’s like I’m a threat to her safety.
He might not be wrong.
FRANNIE AND I ARRIVE at the little village of Port Yarrow just after dawn the following morning.
She’s wearing her non-work clothes, dressed from head to toe like a black widow spider in humanoid form.
There’s a long black veil hanging behind her head and a black shirt tucked into black trousers.
My sealskin is pressed against my chest and tied tight, hidden by my thick winter coat, and the cursed safe is shoved deep into my pocket.
It means I’m sweating like an acolyte in a siren’s bedchamber when we reach the top of the steep hill that leads to the centre. We avoid the brightly painted main street, sticking to the slightly more grim alleyways instead.
Which is when we discover the first surprise of the day.
A figure sits huddled in the alleyway a couple of streets away from Kit’s shop. They’re sitting with their face tucked into their knees with long dark hair covering their face. Frannie and I share a glance as we step closer.
“Are you all right?” I call while Frannie puts herself between me and the figure.
They glance up, peering down the alley toward us. It’s a man. And as he shifts to a crouched position, I see he’s manacled with a thick chain connecting right the way around his legs.
He’s also wet, and his face is covered with a messy beard with straggly dark hair falling just below his chin. His eyes widen, darting every which way as they seem to struggle to focus. I take another step closer and his amber eyes snap to mine.
“That’s a thick chain,” Frannie murmurs to me. ”You think he’s one of King Wildrake’s convicts? Escaped one of the transportation ships?”
“Could be,” I murmur, keeping my voice just as low.
She glances at me and then back at the man, who is shakily forcing himself onto his feet. “Or... he could be a prisoner of war?”
“Which war?” I mutter back.
We’re supposed to be in peacetime. Although in these parts, it feels like someone’s always warring over something. Either that or they’re threatening it.
“We should help him,” I say. “We should at least unlock those chains.”
I don’t usually go around freeing convicts, but something about this man has my heart racing as the oddest feeling tugs at my gut. It almost feels like I’ve seen him before, even though I’m certain he’s a stranger.
Frannie pulls me to one side, dragging me a few steps back before stooping down so she can hiss directly into my ear, “Are you sure about cutting his chains? There might be a reason he’s tied up.”
“We can’t just leave him here,” I reply. “Not like this.”
I’m no bleeding heart, but something about him has my protective instincts rising.
“Fine. But if we wind up missing a kidney, don’t come crying to me.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
She approaches the man until she’s right beside him, and he shrinks back like he’s expecting her to attack.
“Thank you, Frannie,” I say softly, while the man stays silent.
She’s a secret softie, really. And that’s why I love her.
Once I’ve reached them, he shocks me by snapping his arm out and gripping my wrist. As soon as my skin makes contact with his, a jolt of electricity surges through me, like I just touched a live wire.
“Hey, hey, not so handsy,” Frannie says as she inspects the thick links of the chains. “Mercy me, they really chained him up like a dog.”
She squats beside him and sets to work, moving deftly to sever the chains with her fire magic before plucking a couple of tools from the pockets of her skirt.
“It’s all right,” I tell the man as I meet his wide, panicked eyes. “Don’t worry. She’s much better with tools than I am. Trust me, it’s her you want waving a hammer around.”
He doesn’t release my wrist, but he loosens his grip slightly. His thumb runs small circles over my pulse point as his wild eyes meet mine for a second. I can feel him trembling, and I nod, hoping to convey that he can trust us.
Frannie then starts hammering away at the chains while I keep a lookout for anyone passing by. The longer we stand here, the twitchier I get that someone’s going to come down the alley. It’s unlikely, since it’s still painfully early in the morning but we are making an absolute racket.
A few minutes later, and he’s free.
The man’s wrists are bleeding where the chain has clearly bitten into his flesh. His clothing is soaked through and dirty, but doesn’t give me any hint of who he might be.
“You think he’s going to eat you? He’s looking at you like he wants to,” Frannie says.
The stranger still doesn’t say a word, instead continuing to stare at me.
Frannie picks up the chain and shackles, spinning them around on her fingers. “Might as well see what I can do with these.” She eyes the stranger before pocketing the metal. “I’m guessing you want to get him up to Kit’s place?”
I nod, and she lets out a long-suffering sigh.
“Excuse the manhandling,” she says to him. “But you look like you might keel over any minute.”
With no further warning, she hefts him over her shoulder like he’s a sack of potatoes.
I follow along behind her, feeling like a spare part, as she strides up the alley toward the connecting side street. Frannie moves fast as lightning when she wants to, and neither of us wants to get caught right now.
That would lead to questions. Attention. Neither of which are things we want anywhere in our direction. Not while we’re escorting a possible convict and I’ve got my skin shoved down my front and likely stolen goods in my pocket.
I’m not sure we could be more suspicious if we tried.
“Here we are.”
Frannie drops the stranger to his feet, and he immediately wobbles, his legs unsteady under him.
I lurch forward to grab his shoulders right at the same time he flails forward.
Somehow, that means that his hand connects with the slither of a gap in my coat.
Meaning his hand connects directly to my sealskin.
Another jolt of pure energy charges between us, like a blast of pure magic. For a moment, I can barely breathe. A cord twines around my lungs and squeezes tight, cutting off my airway. Then my skin starts to tingle, and I squeeze my eyes shut as a wave of dizziness rolls through me.
The sensations cut off just as quickly as they started. And when I reopen my eyes, the stranger is staring at me with wide eyes.
My heart is pounding in my throat as Frannie peers between the two of us, her expression filled with concern.
Somehow I know that the man in front of me isn’t silent by choice.
He can’t speak.
“Did you feel that?” I ask him in Valmorian, which I somehow know is one of the languages he understands.
We’re a long way from the border with the North, where Valmorian is commonly spoken, so this guy must be far from home. Just like I am.
He nods, and as my heart rate starts to slow, I realise it’s not only my heart I can feel pounding in my chest.
There’s a second heartbeat, fainter than my own but hammering away just as fast.
The door in front of us swings open, and an unfairly handsome man wearing a multicoloured robe and not much else peers out at us.
“Reva? Sweetheart, what are you doing here?” Kit asks, tiredly rubbing his eyes.
“Kit.” My voice comes out more breathless than I’d like, so I take a long, shaky breath before shooting the gorgeous cursebreaker a smile. “I need your help.”
Immediately, Kit springs into action, stepping back and ushering the three of us inside. His brow furrows as he takes in the state of the third member of our party. “And who’s this?”
This time, my voice comes out as a dehydrated croak. “I think he’s my mate.”