Chapter 10
C alder knew the moment she fell asleep. There was a shift in the air.
It grew still. Quiet. Peaceful.
He didn’t think she often felt peace, the chaotic creature that she was. There always seemed to be a nervous hum that vibrated from her, causing even the air around her to grow agitated. It took more effort than he would like to admit to not turn and look at her. There was a strange curiosity to see what she looked like when she was relaxed… when she wasn’t angry or suspicious.
Keeping Emer proved to be more problematic than he anticipated, and while he had managed it, his motivation for doing so began to grow murky. Did he keep her because of her secrets or because releasing her felt like letting go of something more?
He had run into so many dead ends in search of the truth of his mother’s death that something vital in him cracked. Pieces of himself lost over time, leaving edges ragged and raw.
In the quiet, he could recognize that it was not Emer’s secrets fueling his need to keep her, but his own. The sense that she was a lost piece, even if she did not realize it. Ravens know things and Calder knew that it was no coincidence .
Of all the found shores, of all the lost boys, of all the runaway girls… it was here, it was him, and then there was her.
If, however, she truly was not connected to the violence of the past nor there to cause violence in the present, then he needed to get her far away from the keep and Dempsey’s attention.
Emer shifted and Calder looked over his shoulder, half expecting her to be poised to strike him over the head with a blunt object. Instead, she had slipped down the wall and her knees were curled into her chest as she slept.
“So tiny,” he whispered incredulously.
Despite himself, he watched her for a moment.
She let out a content sigh.
He quickly looked back to his papers.
It wasn’t until he had almost finished his correspondences that he heard sharp intake of breath.
Calder shuffled the parchment on the desk. “Nice of you to join the living. Things were peaceful for so long, I wondered for a moment if the Elders stole you in your sleep,” he said without bothering to look at her.
Rubbing her face, Emer tried to orient herself back from the dream she escaped to. One that had been dipped in warm whiskey and wrapped in sea breeze. She eyed the covers she was cradling and pushed them away.
The room was lit by the soft glow of a fire, the light of day having slipped out of Emer’s reach yet again. Silently, she mourned its passing.
When Calder turned to meet her gaze over his shoulder, he paused, watching her in silence for a long moment. Emer smoothed down her hair, her unruly locks seemingly bewitched to defy the natural law.
Calder cleared his throat and returned his attention back to his desk. “Another compromise?” he asked.
Emer’s brow rose, but she did not answer .
“You get this.” He slid a bowl across the desk to the side nearest to the bed. “As long as you are answering my questions.”
Again, she would face the knight of Isle Basalt, but this time, with a ghost of a smile on her lips.
“I answer. I get to eat?” Her tone was an echo of Calder’s own indifference. A tone that prompted him to spare her another slightly suspicious glance.
“Yes,” he said the word almost as if it were a question.
“Delightful.” Leaning forward, she snatching the bowl—a dish of meat and vegetables.
Since first meeting her, he came to expect many things from the girl who washed onto his shore. Finding trouble like a moth to a flame. Impulsivity, to be sure. Poor decisions, almost as a rule. What she was in this moment was pleased and that he had not expected.
Cheeks stretched with food, she smiled again. This time, in a way that made her nose crinkle.
What the actual fuck is happening?
“Why are you here?” he asked only to have Emer repeat the same answer she had given him before, that she was here for her family, though the words were muffled as she chewed this time.
She rocked side-to-side gleefully as she ate.
Calder pinched the bridge of his nose.
“But your family is not from here.” It was a fact that he had already decided was true but required confirmation regardless.
She paused chewing. Her expression grew contemplative and then she shrugged. “Given that you did not present that as a question, I don’t believe I have to answer. Based on your own rules, of course.”
There it was… the reason for her smile . She only agreed to play the game because it was hers, not his.
Clever girl .
Calder fought against the baser instinct to simply terrify her. In any other interrogation, that is what he would have done. That is the exact reason why none had ever gone this poorly. He would have thrown chairs against the wall, watching with satisfaction at the fear that bloomed into their eyes and answers poured from them like spring rain. Once, he hung someone out of one of the keep windows until they complied. But not with her. While that tactic worked on grown men with blood on their hands, she willingly jumped out of one of the very same windows.
He rolled his head between his shoulders, trying to clear it from the fog she seemed to cause.
“How did you get here?” he continued.
“I swam, couldn’t you tell?”
A petulant sound left him. “Alright, where did you swim from?”
“Tír fo Thuinn,” she cited the land from one of the fairy tales often told to children of Rest.
“Fucking fitting,” he said with a hoarse chuckle that did not contain a thimble of humor. “The land beneath the sea. Surely not a lie,” he said through gritted teeth.
At this, Emer’s chewing slowed. She stared at him in open surprise—he should not have known that.
“Do I look like a patient man to you?” he asked dryly.
“No. But you are a man who appreciates order and rules. You only said I had to answer your questions. You never said with what detail or that you had to approve of my answer.” She smirked before licking her spoon clean.
“You’re a child,” he hissed in frustration.
“And you’re a sorry loser,” she returned. “I am of no consequence to you. The longer you keep me, the more foolish you will feel for having overreacted so spectacularly. Save yourself the embarrassment and let me go.”
“Your very presence is concerning. Your resistance is even more so. Your disregard for your own mortality is utterly alarming. You will have to accept that you are entirely unexpected and wholly chaotic,” he listed and it was unclear if he was justifying her captivity to her or himself.
When she attempted to argue he raised his hand to pause her.
“It does appear that you have satisfied your end of the bargain,” he said as he rose. “I will toast your little victory here while I am getting good and drunk. Something I would like to do expeditiously if you don’t mind,” he said as he raised an invisible glass and backed to the door.
He opened it, checked the corridor, and motioned for Emer to leave. Her cheeks warmed in embarrassment at the swift dismissal. She slipped from his bed, placed the bowl on his desk, and then retrieved her boots from the corner of the room. When she did not hear footsteps follow, she turned and found him leaning against the door.
“You have grown too comfortable for my liking, so that is no longer where you will be staying,” he explained with a slight grin.
Pushing off the wall, he led her down the corridor. To Emer's relief, they stopped only a few paces down the hall. Unlocking the door, he motioned for her to enter.
The room was dark, but Calder removed a lantern from the corridor and placed it on the desk by the bed. It was almost identical to the one room she had been in before.
“Standard accommodations, of course. The only notable difference is the apparently necessary lack of trees outside of your window,” he said with a wink.
Her grip tightened on her boots as if she debated throwing them at him once more.
“Now… if you could try not to spoil my plans by getting yourself into mortal danger, that would be much appreciated.”
He punctuated his not-request with a bow as he backed towards the door, still bent forward. He paused at the door waiting for Emer's smart-ass rebuttal and frowned slightly when he was met with nothing. The room’s silence was only broken by the rather pathetic sound of her boots dropping to the floor. The sight caused Calder’s brow to furrow and he shook his head as if attempting to dislodge the scene as he backed out of the room and locked the door.
Nothing ale can ’ t fix.