Chapter 29 #3
I laugh and hiccup, and then clear my throat. “Who doesn’t like pickles? They’re not exactly divisive.”
“But I still don’t care much for mead,” he continues, taking another swig and grimacing.
“If you don’t like it,” I say, airily, “you needn’t drink it. You can go sip rainwater off a grape leaf.”
“Beggin’ yer pardon, Highness,” he says, tugging his forelock. “Dinnae mean to offend ye and yer precious honey-wine.”
“Oh, knock it off,” I say, finishing off my teacup.
The rubbery loose-limbed feeling has returned, and I’m very relaxed, even if I’m excruciatingly aware of my lack of underthings.
I don’t recall having ever been aware of a lack of underthings before, but I also can’t recall the last time I didn’t wear underthings when not planning on going directly to bed, or being in bed, or having just arisen from bed.
My mind’s insistence on replaying the word “bed” is both inconvenient and irritating, and I decide to ignore it and move into less dangerous territory.
“So,” I begin, setting my teacup aside, “tell me about the sea witch.”
He’s slumped down in his chair a bit, his feet stretched out toward the fire, the bottle dangling from his fingertips in an irritatingly louche fashion.
No one ought to look that comfortable drying out in front of a fire, a three-fifths-drunk bottle of mead in his hand.
Especially with—outrageous!—the cat on his lap. Little traitor.
“I’d rather not,” he says. His voice isn’t at all slurred, but he does sound comfortable and perhaps a little less arch than usual. “I assume you’re just making conversation, and I’d rather make conversation about something else.”
“You shouldn’t assume things,” I say. There’s more to that saying, some sort of warning about what happens to people who do assume things, but the exact phrasing eludes me. Bel would know. “It’s not polite,” I add.
“Tandy,” he says, and I wriggle a little at the nice feeling of hearing him say my name, “what happens if you never break the curse?”
“I was wondering that myself,” I say. “Isn’t it sad to think about? I’ll never know what my heart’s desire is.” Before he has a chance to reply, I continue. “But what about your curse? That’s sad, too. You said you love the sea and now you’re stuck here.”
“Here’s not so bad,” he says. “At least I can leave the bookstore.”
“What’s it like? The curse?”
He shakes his head. “What’s it like when you try to leave?”
“It’s an invisible wall between me and everything else,” I say. “Stop avoiding the question.”
He’s quiet for a long moment. “Have you ever heard anyone describe vertigo? It’s like that. The closer I get to the edge of a cliff, the worse it gets. Only the cliff is the sea.”
“What did you do?” I ask. How can I not know what he did to be the victim of such a horrible punishment?
He shrugs. “Doesn’t matter, really. I did it; here I am.”
“But it must have been very bad. She made you afraid of the entire ocean. Did you kill someone?”
He chuckles. “Murder’s really not in my line. I’m very much more a ‘steal things and spend indiscriminately’ type of ship’s captain.”
“That’s a relief. Shouldn’t there be an element to your curse, like with mine, that lays out the condition for breaking it? The curses I read about all had that sort of…thing.” The mead has made everything feel a little fuzzy and thick. “Maybe if you told me exactly what she said…”
“I’m still working it through myself,” he says. “I was at sea when I was cursed, you know. The moment it took place, I was suddenly much more interested in getting away from the sea than I was in all the”—he waves a hand—“details.”
“Oh no,” I breathe, horrified. “Was it awful?”
“Words can’t begin to do it justice,” he says, cheerfully.
“Then tell me what she said; I won’t ask what you did. Just tell me what she said and we can figure it out.”
I cross my arms over the back of my chair and watch him. He seems suddenly uncomfortable. “I’d rather not,” he says, not meeting my eye. “Yet.”
“You’re just affecting mystery for the sake of mystery,” I suggest. I close my eyes, and the darkness is very nice. I open them again. “Admit it.”
“Mmm,” he says, which strikes me as a very comfortable sort of noise for a person to make, a bit like a purr, sort of low and rumbling, conveying rather a lot of information.
“I’m not at all sleepy,” I say to the fire, shifting in my chair so that I’m sort of curled up, my head on one arm. “But you clearly are. You shouldn’t stay here; my mother would be very disapproving.”
My eyes aren’t closing; the room isn’t spinning; I’m only the slightest bit drowsy.
“Yes, I imagine you’re not meant to spend too much time in close quarters with eligible men,” he says, agreeably. Nice of him to be so understanding.
“Nothing about you is eligible,” I murmur.
“You wound me,” he says, and his voice is so deep I feel I can sink into it and sleep for a year. “I’m eligible for prison in one of the eight kingdoms, at least.”
“Probably for stealing cobwebs,” I murmur. I close my eyes for a moment; the fire is warm and red behind my eyelids. The cat’s back on my lap—I can feel her weight, even though she looks like she’s still on his—and everything is quite pleasant.
My last thought is that I hope he has the good manners to leave before he falls asleep.