Chapter 24
Magdala searched the house and grounds until her legs ached, until every tree and pond and blade of grass concealed a ghost. And a ghost is what the assassin must be, because despite bumping around in every closet and armoire, running her hands over every bookshelf, and walking the length of the house three times, she found no secret doors, no hidden rooms. No dragons flapped away from the beach, no boats crossed the open expanse of sea.
But if she couldn’t find the assassin, then how could she protect Asherton?
Dread stalked her. Perhaps the curse was real, and Asherton was doomed.
His brother had been doomed as well, and now he was dead—killed in battle on foreign soil.
Maybe if Asherton ascended the throne, he would die after all—unless she could save him.
Unless he took the amenite and admitted he killed Julian.
Magdala returned at dawn, shivering. Her hair had dried tangled and knotted.
Asherton lay on his bed, reading. Zephyr snored in the armchair by the fire, the green sweater he’d been knitting draped over his knees. Magdala patted his shoulder, and he awoke with a snort. “Oh, it’s you. Catch anyone?”
“No,” Magdala replied, grim.
Zephyr yawned. “I’m going to bed. Lock the door. Keep him away from windows.”
He slipped out and Magdala clicked the lock behind him, then sat on her cot. Asherton glanced up at her, offered a wan smile—or perhaps it was a grimace—and silently returned to his book.
“Are you alright?” she asked.
“I’m always alright,” he replied without looking up.
Taking her hairbrush from the windowsill, Magdala set to work on her hair, viciously tearing through the curls. Her anger and frustration and despair rose with each brush.
Asherton slammed his book shut.
“What?” she asked.
“What are you doing to your hair?” he demanded.
“Brushing it, obviously.”
“No, no, no, no.” He tossed his book on the pillows and swung his legs over the side of the bed. “Your hair is curly.”
“Yes …”
“You don’t brush out curly hair when it’s dry. You’ll be bald in a year.”
She kept brushing. “I’ve been doing this my whole life.”
“Then it’s a miracle you're not already bald … stop tearing at it! Stop!” He leaped across the space between them and sat at the foot of the cot. Magdala pulled up her feet, leaning away from him. “Let me see,” he said, holding out his hand.
“No!”
“You won’t regret it.”
“I am certain that I will.”
“No, you won’t. Come, I’m going to change your life.”
She glared at him. “I absolutely don’t need you changing my life any more than you already have.”
“Come, Mags, humor me.”
She wanted to resist, but he felt warm and familiar and like a friend. Her throat ached and her eyes stung. “Alright,” she relented, but only because he would be behind her and she wouldn’t have to look at him.
“I am a man, mind you, so not an expert, but I have curly hair, too …”
“A little shorter than mine, I fear,” Magdala said.
“No wonder you’re a bodyguard, with those observation skills.”
She let out a soggy laugh. Asherton twined his fingers in her tangles, gently separating the curls while making disapproving clucking sounds with his mouth.
“I have just the thing …” he jumped up and hurried into the washroom, his bare feet padding on the marble, returning a moment later with a dragon bone hair pick and an amber glass bottle.
“This”—he tossed Magdala’s hairbrush aside—“you do not need. Now, this is what I use on my hair, and it works wonders.”
Magdala’s shoulders tensed. Rain ticked against the windowpane.
The fire crackled. Magdala pretended she was passive—that she wasn’t both thrilled and terrified by Asherton’s fingers kneading her curls, and the pick gently working out the knots.
That the warmth of his body, so close to her, didn’t inexplicably break her heart.
“The scent of this is masculine, so I’m sorry,” said his smooth voice, just behind her ear. The room filled with the aroma of cedar as Asherton poured oil from the amber glass bottle into his palm, then grabbed fistfuls of her hair, working the oil into it.
Magdala shut her eyes and tilted her head back. There it was again, the sensation that she was reaching across a void, but now she imagined a calloused hand—with dirt under the fingernails—reaching back.
“Do you know how the assassin is getting on the island, Ash?” she asked.
His hands stilled. “No.”
“But you knew he was there.” The truth clicked in her mind like a gear sliding into a pinion. “At the greenhouse, you thought I meant to shoot you, and you turned toward me anyway. You lost me on purpose in the maze. You sent me into the washroom and sat in front of the window. Why?”
He rested his forehead on her shoulder. She tensed, then, haltingly, she leaned her head against his hair.
“Why?” she asked. “Just tell me why.”
“I don’t know,” he said.
“But you did make yourself a target?”
He exhaled slowly. “I did.”
“Why?”
He didn’t reply.
“You’re a cruel, selfish …” She pulled away from him, and her hair slid through his fingers. “How could you do this to Zephyr? To me?”
Asherton let out a defeated sigh. “Mags, Zephyr was very happy before I came along. I have filled his life with worry and stress and mud …”
“Go and ask him right now!” she said, her voice rising. “Go and ask him if he cares about all those things more than he cares about you!”
“He doesn’t know what’s best for him. And he’s paid to look after me, the same as you.”
“Then what about me? How could you do this to me?”
He shrugged. “I don’t want to die, alright? I’m not suicidal …”
“Then what the hell is all this?” she cried, pointing at the broken window.
He scooted toward her and she did not back away. “What if someone comes after me, and Zephyr gets in their way? What if you get in their way?”
Magdala’s fingernails dug into her palms. “Do not tell me you hired your own assassins so they could kill you on your own terms.”
“I didn’t. But there were times when I knew they were there, or I thought you were the assassin, and I didn’t resist because no one else was around, and it seemed the safest time for it to happen.”
Magdala moaned. “That’s so, so stupid.”
“I don’t want you to think I’m trying to commit some kind of passive suicide.”
“I do! Because you are!”
“Someone is going to kill me eventually, and Zephyr, or Anton, or you, Mags. Someone else will come down with me. Collateral damage. I’m just a bastard, and the only people who care about me are paid to do so.”
Magdala shook her head, and her voice failed her. Tears dripped off her chin; she dashed them away with the back of her hand. “Don’t you ever”—her voice trembled—“call yourself a bastard in my presence, Asherton Ageric. I will slap you.”
“But it’s true.”
“You are a human being with a soul, and people love you.”
“The nation of Allagesh is better off without me.”
“Stop that.”
“I don’t want to be king anyway.”
“Stop it!” Magdala grabbed his shoulders and shook him. “You bloody idiot! If you let yourself be killed, you will only take your pain and frustration and sadness and give them to Zephyr and me. You shrug them off like an old coat you don’t want anymore and make us wear them forever.”
He bunched his brow. “But you want this house …”
“How do you know about that?” She gasped.
“Oh, come now. I knew who you were when I saw your father’s surname on that letter. I’m not stupid.”
“But I don't …”
“You are here because you want my house. And you want to get me out of the way somehow. And if not by killing me, then by ‘saving’ me in whatever contrived manner you can to win my trust and get me to give you Elegy.”
Magdala opened her mouth, but only managed a low moan.
“Admit it, Mags. You want the house and you don’t really care about me.”
“I don’t care about the bloody house!” Magdala shouted.
Her own words struck her like cold water.
She reeled. This house meant everything to her father, but had it ever meant anything to her?
Now that the truth spilled out of her like blood from a picked scab, she felt relieved.
Lighter. Her next words shocked her almost as much. “I care about you.”
Asherton looked stunned. “You don’t really …”
“Yes, idiot, I do! Because I’m stupid, too. But I do. You’re …” She crossed her arms. “You’re my friend now, I guess—I don’t know.”
A slow smile lit his face. “Are we friends?”
“I think so. Maybe.”
He gazed at her thoughtfully, eyes narrowed. “Would you really be sad if I died?”
“Yes!” She reached for his hand, but changed her mind and picked at the blankets. “Everyone is valuable. Even if they’re a nuisance.”
“So, I’m a nuisance?”
She smiled. “Very much so.”
He chuckled. “The nuisance king sounds better than the bastard king …”
“You said that word!” She raised her hand and he caught her wrist.
“Alright, alright.” He laughed. “No need to be violent.”
“You will make a fine king …”
“That’s not what you said before.”
“I take it back. I’ll help you, and so will Zephyr. We’ll make sure everything works out.”
He nodded slowly. “Thank you, Mags.”
“And no more assassins.”
“It’s not as though I paid them myself. I just didn’t run away from them either.”
“Well, next time, run away!”
Asherton fell silent as he gathered her hair into his hands again and began to weave the tresses together. “I’m not much at braiding,” he said. “But it’ll do. Let it out in the morning and see what I mean.” He stood and walked to the bed, lying down on top of the covers.
“Can I trust you?” she asked him. Her voice sounded thin, fragile.
“Yes,” he said. “Can I trust you?”
“Yes.”
“Goodnight, Mags.”
“Goodnight, Ash.”
Magdala lay awake and gazed at the ceiling. Her hair smelled like him now, carrying his scent into her dreams.