Chapter Three
Rhys managed to avoid a direct confrontation for most of a day. Most of a day! The sun would be setting soon, wouldn’t it?
That should count as a whole day, he decided. Yes. He’d avoided it for a whole day. Nearly nine entire hours. That was a day.
He’d happily argue with anyone who claimed otherwise.
Given his propensity for impulse, he thought it very good.
And besides, he had tried to be clever about it.
He’d held the envelope over a steaming kettle until the cook had chased him out of the kitchens with a wooden spoon.
All that had accomplished had been making the expensive paper wilt and ripple and smearing the insignia on the wax seal, which, he realized in retrospect, he ought to have looked at and memorized before destroying.
He’d even gone to his traitor sister, who had a friendship with the Witch of King’s Road, which was what he was calling that woman today. He’d had other names, of course, but he was always coming up with something better.
Rhys was clever that way.
Libba had been no help at all, of course. And her husband had brandished a wooden spoon at him while making breakfast in such a menacing way that Rhys had been given no choice but to flee that venue as well.
So now, all that was left was Miss Bloody Persephone’s Bloody Oddities and Curiosities.
He had been outside the shop for about half an hour now, just frowning up at it, imagining her curled around a ceiling beam, sleeping with her blonde hair hanging down and her arms crossed over her chest like a bat.
The image gave him comfort.
He shook himself and marched forward, determined to get this over with, just to find that the door wouldn’t budge when he tried to open it. He frowned, stepping back and squinting at the signs on the door.
Closed, it read. Ferme.
He blinked several times, his frown deepening, and knocked, anyhow. He rapped and rapped until he could hear her grumbling to herself, shambling around inside, knocking against the table displays as she got nearer to the door.
He did not stop knocking even then, a smirk working its way onto his mouth until she finally shouted, “Yes I’m coming! Christ and all his disciples!” and started fumbling with the chain and bolt.
His knuckles were going numb, but he just increased tempo until finally she wrenched the thing open, her face already flushed pink, eyes wild.
And then he grinned at her. “Hullo, Seph.”
“We’re closed!” she announced, immediately slamming the door again.
He giggled, taking up his other hand to begin his knocking ritual again.
“Go away!” came her muffled voice from behind the door.
He did not go away. He started alternating his timing to create a jaunty drumbeat with his knocks. He ended up taking up both fists and truly finding himself taken by it, whispering a tune to go over the percussive jaunt until she finally snapped.
She kicked the door open again, so suddenly, it might have hit him right in the nose if he’d had lesser reflexes, and stalked away from it, leaving the portal to her den wide and open for him to stride through.
“Púca,” she muttered, which got a laugh from him.
“That’s a Welsh word,” he told her, oddly pleased to be compared to the little, charcoal-colored shapeshifting fae. “Pwcca. Are you studying my tongue, Persephone?”
“I have never been even remotely interested in your tongue, Rhys Caradoc,” she replied with a narrowing of her eyes. “And I was speaking my own language, thank you very much.”
“If you say so,” he taunted, curling his lips up at her into a gloating smile. “Thank you for letting me in on your day off.”
She made a noise, something a little rougher than scoff, and threw her hands up. “I thought you’d show up tomorrow at the earliest,” she told him. “I was just about to leave.”
“Oh?” he said, leaning against the open door frame and crossing his arms over his chest, examining her for any hint that she’d sent him the mystery letter.
She was dressed in green, he noted, a leaf green rather than the emerald of the envelope, with a bright-turquoise underdress.
Perhaps that was a hint. “And why would you be expecting me?”
“Because Libba came by to warn me,” she said, a smug, little quirk finding her lips at his look of dismay. “Oh, yes. She told me all about your early-day tantrum. I just thought you’d need more time to work up the nerve to speak to me directly.”
“Is that your game?” he demanded, leaning a little harder against the jamb of the door, anchoring himself against the beveled wooden plank at his back. “You send your mail to my address to summon me over here like an underling? You could always just come and see me yourself if you miss me so.”
She gave a high-pitched, affected chuckle. “Ha! As though I’d require subterfuge. A quirk of my finger and you’ve always come running.”
“Only to point your cursed finger elsewhere,” he retorted. “Do you want your invitation back or not?”
She hesitated, wide eyes squinting, as though she weren’t sure what game this was. She had always had remarkable eyes, Rhys thought. Blue with a little halo of golden brown just around the pupil. Like a bullseye. Or a poison mushroom.
He produced the green envelope from his pocket, waving it lazily in front of him. “Why did you send it to me, anyway? Were you hoping I’d open it?”
She blinked several times, those remarkable eyes following the wave of the envelope. “I didn’t send you anything at all,” she said, damned convincingly too. “What is that? Who is it from?”
He paused, narrowing his own gaze at her.
She was gripping the countertop near her till like it were holding her upright, hypnotized by the thing like a cobra in a basket.
He would have sputtered if he had enough energy to keep up the ruse. Instead, he drooped, dropping his arm to his side. “You really don’t know?”
“I really do not know,” she confirmed, flinging her arms wide with a shrug.
He sighed heavily. “Fine. Then someone’s having a bit of fun with both of us. Which is worse than it just being you, up to your usual evils.”
“My usua—?!” she began, her tone kicking up an octave.
“All right, enough.” He cut her off, rolling his eyes. “Shall I kick the door shut so we can open the thing up? Or do you want to go out to the sea and toss it in together?”
“I think,” she said through her teeth, “that if it is addressed to me, you will leave it here and begone. I think that makes the most sense, amadán.”
“Ah,” he said, tutting, “I know that one. Did a residency in Kildare.”
“Heard it a lot, did you?” she replied, making him grin.
“Ah, Seph. Mind that forked tongue of yours or I’ll eat your damned letter. Aren’t you the least bit curious why someone sent it to me instead of you?”
“No,” she lied, then she pulled a face and stomped her little foot. “Yes. Did it come to the Rest?”
He nodded. “Inside a second envelope addressed to me. I’ll show you the part that I believe was meant for my eyes if you show me the part meant for yours.”
“A dangerous prospect,” she said, giving a wary lift of the chin. “Fine. Close the damned door. Come upstairs. I’ll put another kettle on.”
Rhys nodded, releasing a little sigh of relief.
As he turned and pulled the shop door shut behind him, he absently considered standing very near the kettle.
If he did that, he could blame the melted seal and warped paper on tonight’s steam and never have to acknowledge this morning’s.
Yes, that was good, he decided. She’d never be the wiser.
He was a clever man, indeed.