Chapter 31 #2
“I’m so sorry,” he says, sounding very small. My irritation with him vanishes; I don’t know Ternis well, but like Driz, he’s never struck me as anything other than a loud, sincere person with a penchant for showboating.
“Next time you kiss someone,” I say, a little severely, “make sure they’re expecting it. Maybe less dipping, too.”
He nods, and after a few quiet words with Driz, he and Yenny leave.
I’m still standing in the narrow passageway between the door to the shop and my desk.
I put my hands on my hips and survey the damage.
I’d been planning on getting rid of some of the bookcases here anyway; they had been making the passageway feel very crowded, and I’ve spent three months worrying they were going to collapse on a customer. I suddenly feel very tired.
“Everyone’s gone,” Sasha says, from behind me, and I turn and smile at her. She’s managed to tamp down her enthusiasm over the day’s excitement. “Do you want some tea?”
I sigh. “Not the turnip stuff.”
“No problem,” she says, and vanishes into my room.
That just leaves me and the pirate, who’s still glowering at the floor. I try very hard not to think about how nice it felt when he had his arms around me.
“You’re still bleeding,” he finally says, and vanishes into my little water closet, returning a moment later with a wet rag.
“No butter this time?” I say, brightly.
He shakes his head and hands me the cloth, but I don’t know where exactly all the blood is coming from, so I hand it back to him.
He takes it wordlessly and steps closer, so that I’m suddenly confronted with an eyeful of his perfect shirt and perfect chest. He dabs gently at my temple, which hurts.
I make an involuntary little gasp, and he swallows; I watch his throat work. “Sorry,” he says, very gently.
I shake my head, and he presses the damp cloth against my temple again. It’s cool, and I close my eyes and inhale the wild, salty scent that follows him everywhere. After a long moment, he steps back, and neither of us says anything.
“How many more of those do you have to kiss?” he finally says, his voice rough. He’s addressing the bloody rag.
“Princes? There are only two left.”
“Maybe if your parents started sending frogs instead. Anything less chaotic than another idiotic peacock.”
I smile, a little wanly. “That’s probably what they’ll move on to next, if Honey can’t find me a proper sorcerer.”
“None of that’s going to break your curse, you know,” he says, looking up at me. Something in his expression makes my heart stutter in my chest. He looks so…so raw.
“I know,” I say, softly. There are about a hundred other things I want to say: Part of me doesn’t want the curse to end, and Part of me thinks I’ll never be able to break it, and Part of me never wants you to break your curse and leave.
That thought is new, but as unwelcome as the rest, so I shove it down into the darkest recesses of my heart.
“I’ve never heard you sound so mad before,” I say, brightly. “You called poor Ternis a, a…” I don’t want to say the word aloud.
“A twat,” Bash supplies.
“Yes, that. I suspect he’s never been called anything worse than a brat before, and even that’s unlikely. His people believe in positive reinforcement at all times.”
“That explains all the…” He waves a hand in a gesture I gather is meant to suggest “windy peroration” and falls silent.
“It was probably good for him,” I add. “A positive learning experience.”
He looks up at me, and our eyes meet. I feel the usual heat creeping over my cheeks, but hold his gaze. After a long moment, he says, “You swore.”
Not what I was expecting. Not that I know what I was expecting. “I beg your pardon?” I say.
“You called the bookcases ‘damned.’ Not very polite language, Your Most Serene Worship.”
“Oh,” I say, and smile. He smiles back, and relief washes over me. Whatever moment we just shared, strange and intimate and silent, is thankfully over. “They deserved it.”
“That’s the meanest thing you’ve ever said,” he says, smiling back.
“You say that, but that’s because you weren’t around when my tutors were making me memorize Salvongian free verse,” I point out. “I said some very mean things to them about the Salvongians.”
He rolls his eyes. “We’ve all met a Salvongian in our time; nothing you say could be less than what they deserve.”
“They do tend to wander around telling people what they think they need to hear,” I agree.
Salvongians indulge in a cultural practice they refer to as “radical honesty,” which means they’re rubbish diplomats and must be seated very carefully at dinner parties, ideally next to people with good senses of humor or bad hearing.
Although my hearing is great, my diplomacy is as well; I’ve been seated by hundreds of Salvongians over the years.
“I once had a Salvongian diplomat explain that it was for the best that I was the ‘working’ royal, as I was too short to be taken seriously as a head of state,” I say.
Bash closes his eyes with an expression that looks almost pained. “You are short,” he finally says.
I open my mouth to reply, though I’m not sure what I’m going to say, since Bash seems singularly disinterested in bantering, but Sasha thankfully returns with a steaming teapot and three cups on a tray, and hands them round.
“Lemon verbena and chamomile,” she says, as I close my eyes and breathe in deeply. “With a shot of mead.”
I giggle. Everything is suddenly very funny. “Don’t tell your mother.”
“Ugh,” Sasha says, sounding sincerely offended. “Mead is for old ladies.”
“You shouldn’t drink,” Bash says. “You could have a concussion.”
“I don’t have a concussion,” I say, and sip my tea. The tastes of herbs and honey and alcohol fill me with a sudden, gentle peace.
“It’s hardly any mead at all,” Sasha adds. “Like, a dash, at best.”
“Then I’ll need more,” he says, and gets up and vanishes into my room.
Sasha looks over at me and widens her eyes eloquently. “Old ladies and barn pirates,” she mouths. I sip my tea and wish I had more mead, too.
Bash returns with a mug filled to the brim with mead, which he knocks back in a single, fluid movement. I am once again left watching the way his throat works.
“Well,” he says, banging down the mug a little more forcefully than necessary. “Let’s get this cleaned up.”
“No, wait,” Sasha says, shooting to her feet. “I have an idea.” She turns to me, eyes glistening. “This was all stuff you were getting rid of, right?” She gestures at the very, very messy entryway.
I nod.
“Let’s get it out on the tables tomorrow: Books that fell on the princess, half-price, today only! We’ll sell out in an hour.”
“I don’t know,” I say, slowly. “That feels exploitative.”
“Tandy,” Sasha says, hands on her hips, “at what point are you going to accept that you are a massive celebrity and everyone here is super proud of you and your bookstore? You want to sell books; everyone wants a bit of you. We can do both things.”
“They could come inside and buy books normally,” I point out.
“Those are boring books, and you’re intimidating!
These”—she gestures wildly toward the hall—“are exciting books that are part of history, and everyone will want one! ‘Oh, I was there the day the bookcase fell on the cursed princess; this is one of the very books.’ It’s genius.
I swear, it’ll work. Oooh.” She leans forward, her eyes sparkling. “You could sign them.”
“I am not going to sign them,” I sigh. “And I’m not intimidating.”
“You’re a royal princess. You live in a castle.
You wear clothes that cost what most people earn in a year.
Five years. And for reasons everyone is very unclear on, you’re cursed to live in a bookstore in the middle of nowhere while this endless stream of princes come traipsing through trying to kiss you.
That’s a lot for Little Pepperidge! We got excited when a wyvern built a nest in the Crannymete gorge last year! ”
I lean forward and put my head in my hands. Delicately; after all, my temple still hurts. Everything hurts, in fact.
“Wyverns are very rare this far north,” I finally say.
“And I’m bringing my friend by on Saturday to talk about your sign with you,” she says, standing up straighter.
“Barn Pirate”—she never refers to Bash as anything other than “Barn Pirate”—“let’s move these into piles by the door and I’ll get the princes to come by and help sell them tomorrow.
The one from today can’t leave until he’s certain you aren’t dead and he didn’t just start a war, and the others have all shamed each other into staying until the curse is broken or Tandy dies of old age. Or something like that.”
“Wonderful,” I mutter. I’ve still got my head in my hands.
I hear Bash rise, just the rustle of fabric, and footsteps going past me.
Sasha and Bash spend a good half hour piling the books up by the door, and I spend the entire time with my head in my hands, trying not to let the welter of confused feelings overwhelm me.
I have the mad urge to giggle, and also to cry.
I do neither. When they finally leave—I hear their goodbyes from the door—I get up and make my way to my room.
It’s been an hour or two since the accident, and everything is really starting to hurt.
I find a couple of rudimentary spells to ease aches and pains and then, without bothering to get undressed, I lie down in bed, curl up around the cat, and cry myself to sleep.
It is the first time I’ve cried since I turned thirteen.