Chapter Thirteen
Seph had been awake for some time, but she was still abed.
She hadn’t moved much at all, since blinking out of her slumber, but to breathe a little deeper and lick the dryness from her lips.
It was a bright morning. Cloudless, she wagered, based on the glare through the thin curtains of the inn room and the cheerful chirp of birds and passersby beyond the pane.
She hadn’t moved because she knew what she’d find once she did, and she was not yet sure she could face it. She was not yet sure she could reconcile that everything that had passed yesterday had been real and true.
And that she’d spent the night, the entire night, next to Rhys Caradoc.
“This place,” Merlin had said, soft and sincere in the embrace of midnight. “This ruin of pain and progress.”
They had been standing in what had once been a monastery. It had been a haven for the devout. And a king’s whims had crushed it into its own sacred soil.
She shivered, the arches and rounded plinths of the toppled stones swimming up in her mind, haloed in the dark. Walls with the spaces for doors and windows, with stone but no shelter to offer, had meandered endlessly into the night.
Perhaps the veil was thin there.
Perhaps that was true.
She pressed her lips together and gave herself a little shake to remind herself of sense. She rolled over, prepared to find her bunkmate gone. Or waiting, a mocking smile already on his face.
Instead, he was still sound asleep, curled on his side with his knees nearly brushing his chest and his arms wrapped tightly around the pillow against his cheek, as though it were keeping him afloat in the sea of his own dreams.
Somehow, that was worse.
She was able to study him this way, without his constant movement. Without observation. She could count the faint freckles on his nose, could see the shade of stubble on his jaw, could marvel at the perfect ringlets of brown hair that rested on his brow.
“I’m just not partial to blondes, Seph,” he’d said to her once, when they’d been young. When she’d asked him if he thought she was pretty, if her new costume was attractive. “Hard for me to judge you like that, considering.”
She bit the inside of her cheek.
They had been friends once. Good friends.
And it felt, after yesterday, like they could be again. Maybe they could. If she kept her head on straight this time. If she believed him when he told her she wasn’t a woman to him, not in the way she’d wanted, then it was possible.
She had thought, for just a moment yesterday … when he’d bought her the birds. But no, he bought gifts for his siblings too. It was just who he was. Rhys treated her like he treated the Starlings.
Like a sister.
“Blonde girls like you,” he’d said to her another day, another morning, before it all had fallen apart. “Remind me of princesses in old stories. Doesn’t heat the blood, you know?”
It might have been all right. She might have learned to accept it, if she hadn’t walked into that tent on the day of their last performance.
If she hadn’t seen what she’d seen.
She didn’t sigh.
But he woke up, anyway. The long, dark lashes that were resting on his cheeks fluttered open, followed by the heels of his hands over them, and then bright-green irises, meeting her own, dimmer pair across the room.
“Morning,” she said, her voice dry in her throat. “Sleep well?”
“Slept cold,” he replied, stifling a little yawn and then flashing her a drowsy smile. “But I slept. You?”
“No complaints,” she said softly, still bundled up to her chin under the coverlet. “It sounds like Mr. Cagney is awake as well,” she noted, nodding toward the door, which was no longer vibrating with the echo of snores.
It made Rhys release a little snicker, dragging his hands over his hair and pushing himself up to sit, his dark-green pajamas crooked over his lean torso.
“Errol told me he snored,” he admitted, craning his neck side to side and rolling his shoulders.
“That was all he said. ‘Da snores.’ Understatement should be a crime.”
“We should go down and eat,” she said, watching how he moved, hopping out of sleep like a cat, somehow both languid and alert as he stood and stretched once more, arms high over his body. “I’m actually starving.”
“Ah, right,” he said, blinking down at the nest of blankets at his feet, his arms slowly folding back down to his sides. “I need to take all this back where it belongs.”
She frowned. “Check the hall before you go out,” she told him. “I don’t wish to foster a bunch of nasty suspicions.”
He grinned at her, leaning down to gather up the pillow and blankets. “Come now, Seph,” he said with a click of his tongue. “You act as though I’ve never sneaked out of a woman’s room before.”
“Oh, I have no doubt you’re quite experienced,” she replied dryly. “Feel free to sneak out of mine. Now.”
He gave another little chuckle, grin still wide, and spun on his heel to obey.
But once he was gone, and she was safe to emerge from her bed, safe to put on her armor and shake off the memory of the night before, she found that she felt a little sad about it.
A little rueful.
Because the magic Merlin had wanted to believe in had been in this room last night, liminal and soft and a little unreal. That was true magic.
And now it was gone.
With only sunlight in its place.
*
Rhys dressed quickly. The rumpled linens went directly onto the bare mattress he’d stripped them from and he stepped into the clean set of clothes he’d brought for today, stuffing away his pajamas impatiently as the aroma of breakfast wafted up from the ground floor.
It was well that Seph had kicked him out of her room when she had.
Any longer alone in a private chamber with her looking like that, hair wild down her back, lips puffy and red from being pressed into her pillow, compounded with the particularly susceptible mindset a man often had immediately upon waking …
Well, suffice to say, he likely would have said something stupid if he’d lingered. Or done something stupid.
Hell, he’d likely have performed both feats, even though he had escaped quickly.
He ran a dollop of oil through his curls as he took the stairs down, two at a time, toward the beckoning sizzle of cured meats and eggs in butter.
He should’ve asked her, last night in that odd, dark stretch of honesty and drowse, what the Devil had actually, truly happened back when they’d been young. She might have answered him if he’d timed it right.
She might have finally told him the truth.
Of course, it was the rule of the universe that the best ideas in conversation only arrive in the aftermath of its reckoning.
Rhys could have ruled the world if he’d come up with half the clever retorts he was capable of in the moment, opposite a foe, rather than six hours later in the bath.
Alas, it was just the way of things.
“Morning, boyo,” said Mr. Cagney, already halfway out the door with a lumpy parcel in his arms. He lifted it up as though to gesture to it as the subject of conversation. “Lady brought you a pair of stuffed birds. You’ve just missed her.”
“Excellent,” said Rhys. “Have you eaten?”
“Twice,” said Mr. Cagney, tossing him a wink. “Going to take a walk. We’ll depart ’round noon?”
“Certainly,” Rhys agreed, helping him maneuver the stuffed hoopoes on their thick, twining branch out the inn door before he sought out a good table with minimal grit on its wooden surface.
He ordered two plates and two cups of whatever was hot and vitalizing, then leaned back to feel the sun on his face until she arrived.
He felt her before he saw her.
Somehow, he knew the sound of her steps. The weight of her soul on the floorboards. He opened his eyes and gave her a lazy, two-fingered wave, holding it until she sagged with relief and trotted over to take the seat opposite him.
“Busy,” she said, looking around at the clamor of diners, which was easily more than double what the inn had seen for dinner last night. “They must excel in breakfast.”
“Let’s hope so. Or hop so, I suppose? Like the hare on the sign.”
She gave him a smirk. “I think that’s a pun, Rhys. Hoppy, like ale?”
He blinked, breaking into a grin. “Ah. And hoppy like a bunny. Clever!”
She shook her head at him, failing to fight off her own smile, and took up her mug of milky, steaming tea with a little sigh.
“Miss Boswell?” the innkeeper called, huffing over to the table with his bushy, gray curls askew. “Missive arrived for you this morn. Urgent, they said.”
“Oh,” she replied, accepting a green envelope with a white seal. “Thank you.”
“Why’s it always addressed to you?” Rhys complained, doing his level best not to pout at the envelope. “I can read.”
“Debatable,” she said, breaking the seal and retrieving the folded paper from inside. She paused, halfway through the motion of unfolding it, then glanced at him across the table, holding the letter aloft. “Do you want to prove it?”
“Go on, then,” he said, snatching it from her and clearing his throat, straightening his posture in the wobbly, wooden chair.
“Ahem. ‘To the Changelings’”—here he paused to wince—“‘Persephone Boswell and Rhys Caradoc. As promised, an extended invitation to my home for the duration of the month of October. Enclosed, find directions to my estate and correspondence particulars, should you choose to stay. Further instructions to follow.’”
There was a pause, during which Seph watched him over the rim of her mug, those odd blue-and-brown eyes of hers wide and expectant. She blinked three times, frowned, and set her cup down. “That’s it?”
“That’s it,” he said, digging in the envelope and withdrawing a message in differing handwriting with a map sketched onto it and forwarding instructions for the Royal Mail. “Do you want to stay here?”
“I can’t,” she replied, her expression still troubled. “I’ve the shop. It’s slow, but it’s not dead.”
“I can’t, either,” he said, making a bit of a mess of stuffing everything back in the envelope.
“Least I don’t think I can. I’m supposed to stay in Brighton for a full calendar year or I lose my pavilion and other bits and bobs from my inheritance.
I had to check with Harcourt just to make sure staying overnight in Lewes wasn’t going to douse me. ”
“Well, that’s that, then,” she said, though she didn’t look happy about it. “I suppose we’ll have to come back for the … What did that fraud woman call it? ‘A concert’?”
“‘Recital,’” he answered, chuckling. “How do you know she’s a fraud?”
Seph cut her eyes to him, her expression stony, which got a laugh out of his throat before he’d even had time to process it.
“Fair enough,” he said, sliding the envelope back to her as their food came out. “But the others might be genuine. A priest? The little lady is very impressive. She’s one of the star attractions of that American circus that’s been set up in London for a few years.”
“What about the one who moves things with his mind?” she prompted, raising her eyebrows. “Not curious about him?”
“Lodestones,” Rhys said with a dismissive shrug. “Has to be. An old hat like Merlin should know better, honestly.”
“Which is what makes me think it’s not magnet foolery,” she answered, raising her brows as she unfolded her cutlery from the scratchy, brown cloth in which they were bundled and floated the scrap down into her lap like a proper lady.
“He said we were the few who’d succeeded in stumping him, didn’t he? Who’s to say?”
“Me,” Rhys said. “I’m to say.”
“Oh, naturally,” she demurred, her attention completely focused on her eggs and toast now. “Well, it said, ‘information to follow.’ Presumably some will follow.”
“Yes, I suppose,” he said, taking up a sausage link and biting into it, still dissatisfied.
How were they meant to make decisions about this request, much less plan it, with so little to go on?
“We’ll have to come up with something to perform for him, I reckon,” Rhys said between bites. “Maybe the ropes? The one over the tub of water?”
“Hm?” she said, glancing up at him like he’d interrupted her mid-conversation. “Oh. Right. Yes, we’ll have to talk about that.”
“Unless you want to attempt the—” he began.
“I don’t,” she said quickly, sending both of them back into silence for several more bites. “God knows if I’d even remember it anymore,” she added finally, giving him a little shrug. “It’s been a long time.”
“I remember it,” he said, careful with each consonant, so as not to spook her off the table. “In detail.”
“Do you, indeed?” she said, tilting her head at an angle that flashed the sunlight across her hair, a thousand shades of molten gold by the strand. “I thought you struggled to remember much at all around that time.”
“That isn’t what I said,” he corrected her, shifting in his seat. “I said I can never find anything specific about that day, aside from the obvious.”
“Of course,” she answered, mild and soft. “Do you remember my cousin Sarah, Rhys? From the caravan?”
He paused, egg dripping off the edge of his fork, and frowned at her. “Not sure,” he said. “You’ve got a hundred cousins.”
“Sarah,” she said again, pointedly. “She was the one everyone thought looked just like me. People mistook us for twins. We even talked about using her as a decoy once or twice in a new trick. Is your memory good or isn’t it?”
He set the fork down, taking up his napkin and dabbing at his lips.
He knew the cousin she meant now. A shrill, silly ninny of a girl who had spent at least two summers throwing herself directly into his path and interrupting several rehearsals besides.
He had seen the resemblance once it had been pointed out, but she was such a ridiculous, empty-headed creature that the longer he’d spent around her, the less he could see any likeness at all.
“Vaguely,” he said. “I think so.”
“That’s so fascinating,” Seph said, her fingers running circles around the rim of her cup. “I thought you’d remember her better, given how close the two of you were.”
“‘Close’?” he repeated, giving an incredulous little laugh. “I barely knew her.”
“And yet,” she said, “you put your tongue in her mouth and had her sitting in your lap the last time I saw you together. Bit intimate, isn’t it, for someone you barely knew?”
He stared at her, heat flaring up into his cheeks as he gave an incredulous, high-pitched bark of laughter. “What?!” he said. “Back then? Seph, I was sixteen. I’d put my tongue anywhere a girl would allow it.”
“Yes, I recall,” she said primly. “It is only that you overcame your aversion to girls who look like me to do so. And so, I thought perhaps she was special in some way.”
He was gaping at her. Balking, truth be told. The edges of his face felt cold. The chair felt like it had shrunk around his arse.
“What?!” he managed to say again, somehow.
“Oh, nothing, Rhys,” she said with a sneer and a huff, tossing her napkin from her lap to the top of her plate. “Finish your breakfast. I’ll see you in the coach.”
And then she stood up and stalked off, her silver-and-coal dress swishing in the morning light.
Two colors, he thought.
Shades of gray.