3. Factually Correct #2
“So you hire a stranger to play the buffer?” I ask. “Where is this wedding even happening?”
“It’s my best friend’s ceremony. Rakan al-Rashid.” Sigurd pauses before adding, “His bride is a human named Iris Beckett, and the ceremony is at Mt. Qaf.”
Rakan al-Rashid I’ve heard of. It would be difficult not to have. The djinn bilionnaire is probably one of the most famous people in the world.
But the fact that his bride is human catches my attention for a completely different reason. Then the rest of Sigurd’s sentence sinks in.
“Mt. Qaf?” I repeat. “As in the Mt. Qaf?”
Sigurd gives me a slight nod. “There is only one I’m aware of.”
Hattie reads about Mt. Qaf in the tabloids, usually beside photographs of celebrities stepping off private jets. My grandmother’s stories were considerably older and involved djinn palaces, impossible gardens, and mountains that didn’t always obey the same rules as the rest of the world.
Either way, ordinary people don’t simply spend weekends there. Mt. Qaf belongs to djinn royalty, monster dynasties, billionaires, and the kind of old magic most people only hear about in stories.
Even reaching the place requires access most people will never have. I become abruptly conscious of the fraying cuffs of my cardigan and the damp shoes that have left marks across Sigurd’s antique rug.
“You want me to walk into that pretending to be your date?” I ask. “I don’t know how to navigate that kind of world.”
“You don’t need to.” Sigurd rises from his chair and comes around the desk. “Rakan is marrying a human, remember? You won’t be the only one there.”
That helps, though not nearly enough. “I’m still a librarian from Saltweather who threatened to sue you less than an hour ago.”
“My mother respects audacity.” He stops several feet away, close enough that the chill from his body reaches me more strongly. “You broke into my office with a damp folder. You have plenty of that.”
“I broke into your office because I was desperate.” I tilt my head back to look at him. “That doesn’t mean I know how to survive a weekend at Mt. Qaf.”
“You don’t need to become someone else when you get there.” His voice drops slightly. “Navigate them exactly the way you navigated me, Ms. Priest. Refuse to be intimidated.”
Standing this close, I can see the faint light moving beneath the markings along his jaw and feel the steady cold coming off his skin. For several seconds, the wedding stops feeling like an abstract bargain.
I’m going to have to stand beside this man and convince a room full of strangers that touching him comes naturally. And the idea isn’t unappealing. Not unappealing at all.
The thought has barely settled when movement gathers in the far corner of the office.
The shadows thicken against the wall until a man in a charcoal suit steps cleanly out of them. The smell reaches me first: dry dust and old myrrh.
His skin is the pale gray of old chalk, and the stack of parchment in his hands looks almost as severe as he does. He doesn’t blink when he looks at me, and after another second, I realize his chest isn’t moving either. A lich.
Sigurd shows no surprise at his arrival. “Ms. Priest, this is Cassian Graves, my legal counsel. I asked him to prepare the agreement.”
Cassian’s undead presence makes a bizarre, infuriating kind of sense. Eiriksson Maritime wouldn’t hire a standard corporate lawyer to handle their acquisitions. Sigurd employs an immortal apex predator who likely drafted trade agreements during the Bronze Age.
“Mr. Eiriksson. Ms. Priest.” Cassian inclines his head to each of us. “I understand the terms remain under discussion.”
He crosses to the desk and places the parchment beside my drying records. The contract is thick and cream-colored, with dense black text broken by thin lines of faint gold.
Cassian turns it toward me. “You should read the agreement in full before signing. Mr. Eiriksson’s obligations are included alongside your own.”
That gets my attention immediately. Near the beginning, the contract states that Eiriksson Maritime will halt the evacuation, withdraw its personnel from the quay, and suspend enforcement of the notices once the agreement takes effect.
“This starts immediately?” I ask, keeping one finger beside the clause. “Not after the wedding.”
“Immediately,” Cassian confirms. “The obligation begins when the agreement is executed.”
I look at Sigurd. “And you’re comfortable putting that in writing.”
“I told you I would protect Saltweather.” His answer is steady. “You shouldn’t have to trust a verbal promise from someone you met today.”
That matters. More than I expected it to.
I continue through the document until Cassian begins explaining the section governing our public behavior. “The arrangement requires physical proximity in public spaces. Hand-holding, waist-tethering, and chaste affection are mandatory to maintain the appearance of an established relationship.”
I look up. “Waist-tethering?”
“It means my tentacles,” Sigurd says. “Do not worry. They are very polite.”
My eyes flick toward the thick limbs moving behind him before I can stop myself. Until this moment, I’ve managed not to think too closely about what pretending to date a kraken will require physically.
Now I picture one of those cool tentacles settling around my waist and drawing me against him. My body can’t help but react to the idea. I lower my attention to the parchment before my face can betray my frustrating response.
“Right,” I murmur. “Very polite.”
Cassian continues in the same dry tone. “You may also be required to share quarters at Mt. Qaf, potentially a bed. Sexual intimacy is explicitly excluded from the agreement.”
I find the clause myself and read it carefully. The boundary is stated plainly enough that there is no room for either of us to reinterpret it later.
“So I may have to sleep beside him,” I say, “but sleeping with him is not part of the arrangement.”
“Correct.” Cassian’s expression remains perfectly lifeless. “Physical intimacy beyond the stated public requirements is outside the contract.”
That should make the idea easier to dismiss. Instead, knowing exactly where the boundary lies makes me more aware of everything that falls just short of it.
My phone buzzes against my thigh before I can follow that thought any further. I pull it from my pocket and find a message from Hattie waiting on the screen.
Please tell me you didn’t do anything stupid. Marta is organizing a blockade. The mermen are literally just floating out there watching us.
Saltweather rushes back into focus. Marta is still standing in the rain, along with everyone else waiting to find out whether they’ll be driven off their own quay before nightfall.
The contract stops being strange for a moment and becomes painfully practical. One weekend beside Sigurd gives me the protection I came here to secure.
I slide the phone back into my pocket and look down at the clause concerning Saltweather once more. Then I turn to Sigurd.
“If I sign this, your crew leaves today,” I say. “Right now.”
“They will.” There is nothing casual in his answer. “Before the ink dries, Miss Priest.”
The room seems smaller with him standing there. I’m aware of his size, the chill surrounding him, and the fact that signing this means allowing that cool, inhuman body into my personal space whenever the performance requires it.
This is one weekend. The contract gives me boundaries, but it doesn’t make the thought of touching him feel remotely impersonal.
Cassian’s fountain pen rests beside the parchment. I pick it up, and the metal feels unexpectedly warm against my palm.
I know exactly what I’m agreeing to. Saltweather gets its quay back, and I spend one weekend pretending that being close to Sigurd Eiriksson is the most natural thing in the world.
I press the nib to the parchment and write my name. Gold ink follows the movement of my hand, glowing faintly as it settles into the fibers.
When I finish the final stroke, light runs once through the signature and spreads into the surrounding lines. Cassian takes the contract only after I lift the pen.
“The agreement is now binding,” he tells us. The finality of the words settles somewhere deep in my stomach.
I hand him the pen and look at Sigurd again. My name is glowing on the contract between us now. There is no pretending this conversation was only hypothetical.
“Then you have a date, Mr. Eiriksson.” My pulse is beating harder than I want him to notice. “Try not to step on my toes.”
His eyes drop briefly to my mouth before returning to mine. “I’ll be careful with you, Miss Priest.”
His voice is low enough that the promise feels more intimate than the contract allows. A slow heat moves through me despite the chill of the room.
Back in Saltweather, his crew will be leaving the quay. My town is safe for now, and I’ve just bound myself to Sigurd Eiriksson for the weekend.