26. 25
The rowboat bobbed and slapped against the wooden jetty. The water was still shallow enough to see the kelp, and the flashes of silver darting near the boat would dash and return with every passing wave.
“Hold my hand,” Davian said.
I saw his hand out of the corner of my eye.
He hadn’t worn his gloves today, and as my hand touched his, even that simple act felt dangerous.
I remembered the feeling of that hand against my neck all too well.
I swallowed and accepted his offer nonetheless, and stepped into the boat, pressing heavily on him to keep my balance as it rocked beneath me.
My other foot stepped in, and I released my hold on Davian to kneel down and grab onto the bench.
I sat on it nervously, looking out at the Dythic Spit in the distance.
Water still made me think of Jusia in the canal, and the resulting cold and unsettling feeling kept my fingers drumming on the wooden edge of the small vessel.
We had no invitation onto the island, and asking for one had not helped.
Despite Davian’s exoneration after his Oath, the other Houses seemed more suspicious of Samiscus’ House than normal.
But there was nothing to stop us from rowing around it.
If there was another way off this island, or some cove Saskia could have hidden in, we wanted to know.
Our carriage ride to the waterfront jetties had been silent.
When we stepped down to the sand, he had called along the jetty for anyone willing to rent out their boat for a couple hours.
We had every intention of bringing it back, of course, but some took one look at Davian and refused.
I wondered if it was due to his race, his habit of dressing all in black, or his mysterious mask and unsmiling face.
I imagined all of it played a part. Eventually, we found a punter who saw more value in Davian’s gold than he did in the fear we might not return the vessel.
Davian untied the boat from its mooring and stepped into the belly of it with no thought of help. The boat rocked, and he reached over to grab something else from the jetty. A basket. He settled it into the boat between us. I somehow hadn’t even noticed it before.
“What’s that?”
“Luncheon,” Davian said. “Fruits, wine. Cider. Pastries.” Then, he took off his cloak and settled it over the basket.
He sat, and rolled up the sleeves of his dark linen shirt.
I swallowed as I stared at the veins on his forearms with the attention I usually reserved for needlework.
It was cruel, really. His skin; the thick, dark hair; the paler underside of his wrists.
Then he sat down, and our knees were only an inch from touching, yet again.
Not enough by half. And far, far, too much.
The boat rocked as Davian grappled with the oars.
I stared at the offending basket. This was the chief problem here, since my obsessive attraction to him wasn’t strictly his fault. I could see the crust of a strawberry tart through the opening.
Right.
“What?” he asked, following my gaze.
“You brought food,” I said.
He nodded, his eyebrows pulled together. “Yes.”
I sighed.
He stayed in his adorable look of concern. “I don’t understand.”
We hadn’t discussed the night before. After the interruption, we returned back with a jittering air between us.
We went to our separate room with glances that lasted a second too long, and I both cursed and loved Camriel.
If he hadn’t been there, I don’t know what would have happened last night.
I was convinced it might have ruined any chance of my returning to Ekris, though.
This morning, at breakfast, Davian had asked if we might take a boat around the Spit. He had asked in front of Eliza and Fella, as if it was nothing. As if that wasn’t a common romantic trip for lovers, one that Robar had promised he would take me on.
Eliza had only stared at her toast, and made no comment.
Fella had waggled her eyebrows at me something awful.
I had blushed beetroot red, and agreed. I knew, from the meaningful look in Davian’s eyes, this was far more about our investigation than it was about anything more.
But how it looked and how it had felt wasn’t nothing.
Maybe a date around the Spit had no meaning to him, but he had to imagine it might mean something to me.
I shook my head. “Last night, we nearly—we started—”
“Yes,” Davian said, and his tongue wetted his lower lip.
I could kill him. Or eat him alive.
I breathed through my nose. “Then today, you invite me to come with you. To row around the Spit. In summer. With a luncheon of pastries and wine.”
Davian scanned my face and then arrived at what I must be thinking. He rolled his eyes and smirked. “Is it too romantic for you?”
My mouth gaped open. He started to row, his smile dying as I clamped my lips shut. It was an entirely beautiful day, and the sun wasn’t too overbearing, caught behind a haze of cloud. The waves lapped gently as we pulled away. It should have been perfect, but I couldn’t find any humour yet.
“I don’t know,” I said in reply, far too sincerely. My arms were shaky and my mouth was too dry. “Is it?”
Davian stared at my mouth, and then looked away to the Spit over his shoulder.
The question lingered in the air, catching and cloying in the sea breeze. Was this too romantic? Or was this—us, whatever we were doing—romantic? Was this a sexual attraction found in the midst of a mutually beneficial arrangement? Or was it courtship?
Davian said nothing. I struggled not to take that as an answer—a rejection. The disappointment I felt was only an indication that this whole thing had gone way too far. This was only supposed to be a means to an end. A path home.
I hated that ‘home’ had begun to feel like a bedroom with a cat curled on my bed, and not Talia’s dorm.
I was profoundly glad for the distraction of the setting.
Every movement of the oars brought us closer to the Spit, foot by foot.
In high tide, as it was now, the path across to the island was flooded, separating the island from the rest of Dytho.
Twice a day it was only accessible by boat, or you simply had to wait until the solid ground returned.
The island sloped up to the guard post, and through it, the two opposing Houses sat on its eastern and western edges, staring at one another.
We approached from the side of the House of the Moon, and its banners flapped in the light summer breeze, the midnight blue background contrasting against the white sickle moon in the centre.
A narrow path picked down to where the water lapped against the rocks, and a small stone jetty sat, with a single boat also decked with a midnight blue sail.
Before Saskia, I had believed it to be a lovely contrast. The House of the Sea, with their seafoam-green-sailed fishing boats, setting off at the crack of dawn. A House of mornings, across a courtyard from the House that venerated the darkness and the power of night.
Knowing the Sea suspected the Moon for Saskia’s killing made their beautiful setting more terrifying. Even with the guard post on the island, there were hours where these devotees were locked away from escape on foot. Trapped together.
Davian’s mind must have been in a similar place.
He cleared his throat. “If the person who killed Jusia also killed Saskia, for some sacrificial offering to Ragnifort, then we have two choices.” He caught his breath and continued.
“They either lured Saskia away from the Spit, and she ran away from the Spit undetected, and was later killed on the mainland. Or, someone killed her on the Spit itself, and got rid of the body somehow, likely in the water.”
“That Moon jetty looks like it's only accessible from the back of the House itself.” I pointed to it. “Unless you’re a mountain goat.”
“Hard to be a mountain goat while hauling a body,” Davian replied.
I grimaced, looking at him only long enough to see him pulling the oars, a bead of sweat on his forehead. He hadn’t taken off his mask. I wished he would. I forced myself to look back at the island. “I think it’s much more likely that someone who was on that Spit killed her.”
Davian nodded. “I agree. That leaves us with most of the House Leaders who visited for the symposium, plus the entire retinue of the Moon and the Sea. And the half a dozen guards who live there, plus the half a dozen who swap in for extra shifts. At a guess, sixty or seventy possible killers. Assuming no one else snuck onto the island.”
“It wasn’t just the Leaders,” I responded idly. “Aseem brought Petros with him.”
“Well remembered,” Davian said, stiffening at the name of the prison warden. “So if every Leader brought a guard, that’s another six suspects.”
It was a large list. It didn't helped that if the motive was sacrificial, and not personal, the culprit could be anyone. Though, it seemed a coincidence that the disappearance happened quickly after the visit from the Leaders. Was that the cause, or merely a distraction?
I frowned, staring at the flapping Moon banner. “Why do the Sea blame the Moon?”
Davian exhaled in an exasperated laugh. “It’s an old feud, that one. Goes back to the gods themselves. Otori, as Queen of the Gods as well as the Moon, once claimed that she should own the Sea, too.”
This was Davian as he had been, his tone shifting as he recounted a childhood lesson on the gods. To be chosen so young by Wisdom… I took the bait easily. “Why?”
“She said that the moon pulled the waves,” he said. “That if the moon controlled the tides, then the sea should be hers to control.”
I hummed. It rang a faint bell. “Pleiidus didn’t like that?” I guessed.