Chapter Twenty-Three #2
“Watch him, would you?” I say, then glance to Lorcan, whose eyes remain on the street, hand wrapped over the hilt of his sword. “On second thought, watch them. Nessa? You’re with me.”
“Aye, Captain.” Nessa coughs into her sleeve, then presses it over her nose. “Wouldn’t dream of being anywhere else.”
“Grand so.” Dragging my shirt over my own nose, I step back inside.
Past the cage and the carcasses, there’s not much else to see: a bed with the sheets and blankets already stripped, trunk stamped with Reborn Stalk’s insignia and absolutely nothing inside.
“I told you,” Rowan says, her voice muffled by a pretty silk scarf she’s tied behind her head. “There’s not much left.”
My sigh dampens the fabric, sticking it more firmly to my nose as Nessa ducks behind her, searching the rest of the room. “And I told you to wait outside with Rí Aidan.”
“I don’t care to get vomit on my shoes.”
I glance at her feet, tucked in matching silk slippers, and can’t help a laugh. “Fair point. What else did you find out?”
Her eyes crinkle as she smirks. “I worked a full shift before you interrupted, Faolan.”
“Which means you earned double wages.” Rolling back onto my heels, I crook a finger, grinning beneath my shirt. “Come on, Ro. For old times’ sake.”
She kicks the doorframe once, then rolls her eyes—but I can see her giving in. It’s buried there in the crooked line of her cheek.
“I might have been with a painter yesterday, who might have worked out of the corner shop on this road the same night your apothecary was taken.”
My nose twitches. The smell seeping in. “Your friend didn’t flee?”
She shakes her head. “No, that sort of thing happens all the time. What did catch his eye was the look of them.”
“What, were they particularly ugly bastards?” Nessa asks, abandoning the curtains in favor of poking through the empty chest.
“They were completely different sizes. One was average, but the other was practically the size of a child. My friend thought she was until she was leaving and he caught sight of her figure beneath the cloak.”
I drop the shirt, putrid air rushing in as I breathe. “Rian and Aoife?”
Rowan’s eyes glimmer in the dark. “Maybe? Like I said, I wasn’t the one who saw them to confirm, and you know they’re not welcome at the Tit’s Tempest. We favor the wolves.”
“That doesn’t matter. They—”
A whistle sounds: short and sharp.
“Shite.”
I tear through the shop right behind Nessa, hurling myself out through the doorframe just as Lorcan grapples with a tall figure while two others pin Aidan against a wall.
“Watch yourself,” Nessa says, running past to Aidan. “There’s another one in the—”
“I’ve got him!” My sword screams as I unsheathe it, metal clashing with the blade that swings down for my throat as a fourth attacker detaches themself from the shadows.
I can’t help a feral grin as I drive my shoulder into their stomach, snatching a dagger from their waist with the other hand.
“Come on. You can do better than—”
Their hand drives up between us, spiked rings raking over my skin.
I swear—hard—as four thin stripes of fire lick across my chest, setting me snarling as I drive the dagger into its owner’s throat.
Blood gushes over us both. I spit a wet mouthful to the side and shove their body into it, turning in time to see Nessa wrest one of Aidan’s captors away just as Rowan hurls a stinking jar from the apothecary’s shop into the face of the other.
All five of them howl with pain, breaking apart as the one who got the worst of it clutches at their bare neck, where blisters erupt across their skin.
“Get him inside!” I shout, shaking off the pain as the first man who’d been pinning Aidan strips off his cloak while Aidan peels away his shirt.
Bright purple streaks wash over his pale skin and up his left side—just sparing his royal face, thank the stars.
Nessa and Rowan are only slightly better off, the first shoving both of them back through the shop’s door before drawing her sword again.
Aidan safely tucked inside, I turn to face the lad whose smoking cloak lies in a sopping puddle near his feet.
He’s young. Should be forgettable.
But even sallow-faced and trembling, I recognize him from the day we boarded Rian’s ship looking for the bone ring at the expense of his crew.
“You.” I grab him by the shirt collar and press my knife just below it, blade gleaming lavender in the crystal’s faded light. “What the feck do you think you’re doing here?”
The lad squirms, floundering for his own dagger. I kick it away.
“Answer me.”
“We were meant to keep watch!” His eyes dart between us, looking for an escape. “Captain Rian thought someone might come looking—”
“He thought right. Now, answer this next question very carefully, unless you want to lose your tongue.”
Fear glints in the whites of his eyes as he nods.
“Good lad. There was an apothecary set up here, aye? I want you to tell me where Rian took him.”
“I can’t—”
My grip shifts from his collar to his jaw, squeezing hard and wrenching down so he has no choice but to gag, tongue slipping out. But right as I set my knife’s tip against it, he jerks back with a muffled shout.
“Mphe G-erough!”
“What was that?”
“I said he’s at the Merrow!”
“Was that so hard?” Grunting, I drive the hilt of my dagger into his temple, and he drops to the ground—and stars, it feels good to be in charge again. Good to fight.
To my right, Nessa drives her sword through the neck of Aidan’s first attacker as a wet gurgle sounds behind us both: Lorcan dropping the one who came after him first.
“Right. Nessa, get Rowan and Aidan out of here. Lorcan, we’re going to—”
The world stops moving.
I stop breathing.
A trail of blood splatters over the clay path as that tall figure Lorcan wrestled with slings back their blade.
And I watch as my bosun chokes, staggers, and falls to the ground.