4. Expensive Armor
Expensive Armor
Sigurd
The morning fog hangs low around the modest hotel, softening the buildings across the street. Rain has left the pavement shining beneath the idling town car.
I wait beside the rear door and let the cool air settle against my skin. Yesterday, I promised to protect Saltweather without telling Valerie what still threatens it.
The treaty with Lotan carries a vow of secrecy I can’t break. Until I find another solution, I can’t tell her how much more sits behind the evacuation order.
The omission doesn’t sit well with me. But Valerie trusted my promise, and I intend to keep it.
The hotel doors slide open, and she steps onto the sidewalk in charcoal trousers, a pale blouse, and a light cardigan. Her hair is pinned loosely back from her face.
She spots the town car and slows. The long black vehicle gets a skeptical inspection, as though she expects it to come with terms and conditions of its own.
I nearly smile. After yesterday, she has reason to be suspicious of anything expensive that appears in front of her without warning.
I walk around the hood and pull open the rear passenger door. “Watch your step. The rain made the cobblestones slippery.”
“I can manage a puddle, Mr. Eiriksson.” She gives me a dry look as she approaches. “I’ve had some practice.”
Valerie climbs inside, and I follow her into the back. The reinforced door seals behind us, muting the traffic and leaving the cabin in comfortable dimness.
My car was built around kraken proportions. The rear seats leave plenty of room for my tentacles, and normally I’d call the cabin generous.
With Valerie beside me, generous feels optimistic. She fastens her seat belt, and the faint scent of floral shampoo reaches me when she settles back against the seat.
Our knees sit only a few inches apart, and one of my tentacles rests uncomfortably close to her ankle. I draw it nearer to my side before the driver pulls away from the curb.
Valerie looks through the rain-streaked window as the hotel disappears behind us. “Saltweather is mostly fog until July. This almost feels familiar.”
She would know this kind of morning better than I do. Yesterday, she walked into my office soaked through and refused to leave without an answer.
The thought brings Saltweather with it. My crews left the quay exactly as promised, but the real problem hasn’t gone anywhere.
I can’t tell her that yet. All I can do is keep my word and find another answer before the truth catches up with us.
The town car merges into morning traffic, and Valerie tests the reinforced door beside her with two fingers. “I assume this thing has a decent safety rating. The doors feel like bank vaults.”
“The chassis uses abyssal steel. It can survive considerably worse than anything we’re likely to encounter in city traffic.” I leave the definition of considerably worse alone, and Valerie seems content to do the same.
Fog drifts past the tinted windows while the commercial district takes shape outside. The contract permits far more contact than the few inches between us, which somehow makes me more conscious of them.
“You told me your mother wants you back with your siren ex,” Valerie says. “What I still don’t understand is why she cares enough to engineer it at somebody else’s wedding.”
“She doesn’t care about my romantic life.” The distinction has never troubled Solveig, and I doubt it ever will. “A public reconciliation would reassure the merfolk clans that my family still values the alliance.”
Valerie considers that for a moment. “So your love life is essentially foreign policy.”
“When my mother is involved, most things eventually become foreign policy.” I settle farther into the leather, trying to find a position that doesn’t put one of my tentacles within easy reach of her.
“And the siren is happy to go along with this?” Valerie asks. The question sounds casual enough, but she has no idea what name I’m about to give her.
“Maren has never objected to a public appearance.” Valerie goes still for half a beat, and then recognition catches up.
“Maren?” She turns toward me fully. “As in Maren Dahl? The platinum-selling Maren Dahl? You want to avoid an international celebrity?”
“I want to avoid a three-hundred-year headache,” I reply. “Her record sales are irrelevant to me.”
Valerie lets out a short breath, shaking her head. She looks down at her own slacks, picking at the hem of her cardigan. The rush of warm air venting from the climate control stirs the stray hairs framing her face.
“They aren’t irrelevant to the cameras,” Valerie says, looking back up at me. “If you think a librarian from a small town is going to outshine Maren on a red carpet, your logic is very flawed.”
“I don’t want you to outshine her.” Her brows lift, and I give her the part that actually matters. “Maren performs. You don’t. That alone gives you the advantage.”
She studies me for a moment before answering. Since Valerie entered my life, she hasn’t once tried to shape herself around what I might prefer, and I’d rather not see her start now.
“You really think that matters?” she asks. Some of the challenge has gone from her voice.
“I wouldn’t have asked you otherwise.” The answer comes easily, and the color warming her cheeks makes the cabin feel smaller than it did a moment ago.
Valerie turns toward the window again. “There’s still one fairly obvious flaw in this brilliant strategy. Confidence doesn’t tailor a dress, Mr. Eiriksson.”
She gestures down at herself and shakes her head. “I packed sensible clothes. At Mt. Qaf, I’m going to look like your accountant.”
“Which is exactly why I asked to meet with you today.” The car turns away from the main avenue, and the storefronts outside become progressively more expensive. “Before we go to Rakan’s wedding, we have a stop to make.”
Madame Eleni’s boutique smells of floral perfume, steamed silk, and something faintly metallic from the tailoring tools. Reinforced ladders and fitting platforms rise toward the high ceiling, built for clients whose proportions have very little in common with Valerie’s.
A velvet curtain sweeps aside almost as soon as we enter. Madame Eleni emerges in a severe black dress, her silver hair arranged in an immaculate updo. She is an Arachne, and her six elegant arms move around her in practiced coordination.
Her attention goes straight to Valerie. “A human! Sigurd, you neglected to mention such a delightful presence. Where on earth did you find her?”
There it is. Cassian anticipated exactly this kind of question when he prepared our cover story, but delivering it with Valerie standing beside me feels stranger than reading it on paper.
“I met her near Saltweather,” I tell Eleni. “I was swimming past the coast when I saw her walking along the shore. It took me three weeks to approach her, even though she’d already noticed me.”
Valerie turns her head toward me. For half a second, I wonder whether she remembers the same version; then her mouth twitches.
“He was very hard to miss,” she tells Eleni. “I thought he was a very large, very lost whale at first.”
Eleni laughs, several hands fluttering toward her chest. Valerie keeps going before I can decide whether I should be offended.
“It took me a while to realize he was lingering there on purpose,” she adds. “Apparently subtlety works differently underwater.”
It’s only a lie, but the image comes to me with irritating clarity while she speaks. I can picture Valerie walking beside the water while I linger beyond the breakwater, waiting for another glimpse before finally approaching.
The old kraken greed in me likes the picture far too much. I recognize the impulse and leave it unanswered.
“A silent admirer in the deep,” Eleni says, delighted. “Very romantic. Slightly alarming, perhaps, but romantic.”
“I was discreet,” I tell her. Valerie glances up at me, amusement bright in her face.
“You were the size of a fishing boat,” she says. “Discreet might be generous.”
I nearly argue, then think better of it. For one foolish second, I can almost remember a courtship that never happened.
Eleni finally turns from gossip to business. Two of her hands hold a measuring tape, while another carries a pincushion and a fourth keeps silver shears ready.
“Cardigan on the settee, Miss Priest.” She gestures toward the fitting mirrors with another hand. “I need your measurements before I decide what can be altered in time.”
Valerie slips it off and crosses toward the mirrors. By the time she reaches them, Eleni already has the measuring tape looped between several hands.
“Sensible shoes too. Excellent.” Eleni looks down approvingly before beginning with Valerie’s shoulders. “I like you more every minute.”
“I’m very attached to clothes I can move in,” Valerie replies. “And shoes that don’t qualify as a workplace hazard.”
Eleni laughs and keeps working. The measuring tape passes neatly from hand to hand while another records numbers, and Valerie submits to the process with admirable patience.
A few minutes later, Eleni reaches for a length of emerald silk. She drapes it over Valerie’s shoulders, gathers it loosely at the waist, then steps back to assess the fall.
“Beautiful. Now I need the hem.” Eleni points toward the high fitting platform beside the mirrors. “Up you go, Miss Priest.”
Valerie turns toward it and stops. The first useful step was clearly designed for someone with much longer legs, and the platform itself rises nearly to her chest.
“At the risk of pointing out the obvious, I’m not built for mountaineering.” She looks back at Eleni, who doesn’t appear remotely concerned by the problem.
Two of Eleni’s hands keep hold of the emerald silk while another gestures toward me. “Mr. Eiriksson can help you. That is what attentive men are for.”
Valerie turns toward me, then looks back at the platform with obvious suspicion. “I was afraid you were going to say that. Please don’t make this unnecessarily dramatic.”
“I have no intention of it.” Her expression tells me she has very little confidence in that promise.
The emerald silk hangs loosely around her, pinned away from one wrist. I bring a tentacle forward and curl it gently around the bare skin, giving her something steadier than the narrow wooden rail.
Valerie inhales at the contact. Her warmth registers immediately against my cooler skin, and her fingers settle cautiously along the ridged surface of the limb.
“Cold,” she murmurs, looking down at it. “You really are.”
“I did mention that.” I keep the hold loose, though she shows no sign of wanting me to move.
“You mentioned a lot of things yesterday.” Her thumb shifts slightly against the tentacle. “Some of them were distracting.”
I’m fairly certain she means the contract. I’m less certain I want to know which part distracted her most.
The first step remains too high for her to manage comfortably, so I bring a second tentacle around her waist. It settles over the emerald silk and takes enough of her weight to make the climb easy.
Valerie goes very still for a moment, then looks directly at me. Cassian reduced waist-tethering to a line in a contract, and the wording made it sound far more harmless than it really is.
“Ready?” I ask. Valerie nods, and I lift just enough to bring her level with the platform.
For a moment, her weight rests easily between the two tentacles. The warmth of her body reaches me through the thin silk; she is close enough that keeping her there would require almost no effort at all.
I set her down as soon as her feet clear the edge. The tentacle at her waist loosens first. The one around her wrist stays until she has found her balance.
The extra height leaves us almost eye to eye. Valerie looks down at the retreating tentacle, then back at me.
“You didn’t mention they were that dexterous,” she says. Her fingers flex once at her side, as though the sensation hasn’t quite left them.
“I assumed it was implied.” I draw both tentacles back. “You weren’t going to fall.”
That earns me a small smile before Eleni moves in with several hands full of pins. Whatever Valerie might have said next disappears beneath a fresh avalanche of silk.
“Hold still, Miss Priest,” Eleni says. “And you, Sigurd, try not to look so pleased with yourself. You’ve only managed to put a woman on a platform.”
“I’m aware of the scale of my achievement.” Valerie catches my eye over Eleni’s shoulder, and this time I don’t bother pretending I’m not amused.
Eleni circles the platform, pinning and adjusting until the emerald silk falls cleanly around Valerie’s legs. Then she steps back, studies the result, and immediately reaches for another length of fabric.
The emerald gown is only the beginning. Over the next two hours, Eleni works through silk, velvet, and fabrics that catch the light in ways I don’t have names for.
Valerie endures the fittings with more patience than I expected. By the time Eleni finally declares herself satisfied, garment bags cover half the seating area.
Outside, the rain has eased into a cool mist. Two assistants carry the garment bags to the car while my driver arranges them carefully in the trunk.
I warn him that the emerald silk catches easily near the zipper. He moves that bag to the top without comment and continues loading the rest.
Valerie stands beside the car in her own clothes again and watches the trunk fill.
“I know I agreed to play the part, but that was surreal. I just stood there while a woman with six arms wrapped me in enough silk to fund my library for a decade.” She gestures toward the garment bags. “This isn’t a wardrobe. It’s armor.”
I glance at the neatly packed black bags. “Overpriced armor, but yes.”
Valerie turns toward me. “So the dresses aren’t supposed to make me look like Maren.”
“No.” I lean one shoulder against the car while the last bag disappears into the trunk. “My mother and the people around her are very good at finding weaknesses. If they decide your clothes are one, they’ll use them.”
Valerie’s brows draw together as she considers that. I nod toward the trunk before continuing.
“Eleni makes sure they have to look elsewhere.” I hold Valerie’s eyes. “They’re supposed to make sure nobody can dismiss you before you open your mouth.”
The tension around her mouth eases. “That I can work with. I’m much better with arguments than couture.”
“I noticed.” Her mouth curves, and I decide not to spoil the point by elaborating.
The driver closes the trunk and moves toward the rear door. Valerie starts in the same direction, but I reach it first and place a hand at the small of her back to guide her around the wet curb.
The contact is light and entirely unnecessary. That makes me notice it more than I should.
Valerie doesn’t pull away. For the briefest moment, she leans into my palm before stepping into the car. I let my hand fall without deciding whether she meant to do it or not.