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The large bowl of steaming hot water I found on the table inside was enough to make me forget about war and bindings for a moment. Next to it stood a small pile of soaps and lotions, and I took almost orgasmic pleasure in trying every single one of them before deciding on the lemony soap filled with dried flowers. I’d spent ages roaming forests without a bath in sight; I could take a few moments to spoil myself.
By the time I’d disposed of my salty, sticky dress and scrubbed every inch of my skin clean of blood, sweat, and seawater, I felt like a woman reborn. Rinsing the salt from my hair and rubbing a good handful of jasmine oil into the dry strands did the rest. Once I was clean and no longer smelled like a drowned corpse, I pulled the only non-black piece of clothing I’d brought along from the bottom of my bag – a cornflower-blue blouson dress I’d taken along because it was as light as it was comfortable. I doubted I’d need any red magic under Helenka’s protection, and dressing myself in blue might give the hint I really wasn’t here to harm anyone.
With my nails clipped and my hair tied into a loose braid, I felt significantly readier for the next task waiting for me. If I had to become the kind of person who conducted magical experiments on prisoners, at the very least I could do it stylishly.
Lyn and Tared were sitting in the clearing when I made my way back, heads close together as they discussed something in hushed tones. That first glimpse was all I caught. The moment I stepped towards them, something pink and honey-blonde flashed across my field of vision and slammed into my ribcage with a bone-rattling smack – Naxi, clutching her slender arms around me as she rattled off an elaborate monologue of gratefulness and squeezed all but the last puff of air from my lungs. I was seeing black spots by the time she finally let go of me, her blue eyes wet with almost-tears, her shoulders stiff with the panic of the past hours.
‘Thank you so much,’ she whispered for what had to be the twentieth time. Her voice still shook. ‘You have no idea … The bastards …’
‘It’s alright,’ I said, not sure what else I could tell her. She didn’t look convinced, so I found a grin to throw at her and added, ‘Wasn’t much of an effort.’
She burst out laughing at that and skipped to the next dome with a little more of her usual liveliness. ‘Creon! Creon, you’ll have to come out – I need to hug you too!’
At least someone was acknowledging his part of the work. There was no sign of Creon yet, but Naxi looked staunchly determined as she positioned herself at his door, and I doubted it would take her much longer than a minute to drag him out.
Which gave me about two minutes to make sure Tared wouldn’t get ideas about drawing a sword next time the two of them exchanged a look.
He and Lyn broke off their conversation when I walked over to them. Only halfway across the clearing did I notice the food spread out on a blanket before them – cheese and nuts and bread and a dizzying number of brightly coloured dips, divided between dozens of small bowls and plates. My stomach let out a single, heartfelt rumble at the sight of that abundance, and at once my legs were shaking with a ravenousness I hadn't allowed myself to feel yet.
‘We thought you might be hungry,’ Tared said dryly as I dropped down onto the moss beside him and grabbed the first white bun within arm’s reach from its reed basket. There were tense lines around his lips, and he hadn't sheathed his sword yet, but his voice betrayed little of his worries. ‘Take whatever you want. We had lunch with the others.’
I stuffed one cheek full of bread and swallowed without chewing much. ‘I imagine Helenka was delighted with a surprise pack of hungry alves to feed.’
Lyn’s chuckle said enough. Tared gave me an amused look and said, ‘I don’t hear you doubting our table manners, do I?’
‘No doubt involved at all,’ I said.
He shoved an elbow into my ribs. I considered chucking a handful of hazelnuts at him but decided I was much too hungry to waste good food, and he would probably consider it a victory anyway. Popping the nuts into my mouth instead, I nodded at the other side of the clearing and muttered, ‘Is Naxi alright?’
‘She will be,’ Lyn said quietly. ‘Old wounds coming up. She lost her mother and her mother’s family in one of these attacks.’
Close to what I had suspected. It did explain a thing or two about how a half-demon with very little empathy had ended up loyal to the losing side in this war. The sound of her chipper chatting to Creon seemed jarring in comparison – what would I have felt beneath that cheerful shield had I looked for her with Zera’s bag in my arms?
‘So,’ Tared said, interrupting my spiralling thoughts, ‘are we getting the story of how in hell you walked out of that battle alive, or is that arcane godly knowledge that we simple immortals are not deigned worthy of having?’
I threw a hazelnut at him anyway. He chuckled, looking more relieved than I’d expected below that superficial amusement.
It took just a few minutes to summarise the madness of our fight – shells, velvet, Iorgas and his alf steel. They looked deeply satisfied by my account of how Silly Helmet had been crushed below a mast, and even more pleased with my description of Iorgas’s undignified end. By the time I got to Alyra’s arrival – tactfully leaving out the situation in which she’d interrupted us – even Creon’s emergence from the hut on the other side of the clearing was not enough to wipe the wry smile from Tared’s face.
‘And then we convinced Helenka to allow us in,’ I finished, again strategically skipping over the finer details and the questions she’d asked, ‘and we passed a prison on our way here. Which made me realise … Well, if I need to practise some untrained magic on people anyway, better a few fae captives than our own friends, right?’
‘Yes,’ Lyn admitted, hesitation obvious in that single word. ‘I agree we shouldn’t be using our own allies as test subjects …’
‘Although there are a few I wouldn’t particularly miss,’ Tared muttered, which earned him a hazelnut to the head from Lyn.
‘… but are you sure this is something you want to donow?’ she continued, turning back to me as if she hadn't heard him. ‘Your day has been wild enough as is. If you just want to stay here a few days while we make sure the Mother doesn’t try anything again, no one will begrudge you that.’
A damn tempting suggestion – just a few days of loitering around in a sun-streaked forest, with nothing on my mind except perhaps snacking on sweet berries and taking the occasional swim in the azure sea. Then again …
I risked a glance at Creon, who was sauntering closer, Naxi bouncing along by his side. Helenka wanted him gone from Tolya by tomorrow, and his bargain mark gave him no choice but to obey that command. So that would be days on my own in this place. Days of pretending I wasn’t missing him. Days of keeping secrets I desperately did not want to keep anymore.
‘You very convincingly argued why we had limited time to go look for Zera,’ I said, dipping a chunk of bread into something bright red that I suspected to be a pomegranate sauce. Against the white bread, it looked uncannily like blood, and I had to consciously stop my stomach from churning. ‘I doubt the Mother will take things more slowly now that she knows Creon and I are capable of stopping whole fleets together.’
Lyn’s tight lips told me that she hated to agree with me. ‘Still, it won’t help anyone if you work yourself to death.’
‘Good gods,’ Naxi said brightly, plopping down next to me. ‘Are we already talking about dying again?’
I shifted aside a little so Creon could sit down between her and me – and just as importantly, not next to Tared. It took a constant effort to remind myself that their ill-conceived duel had taken place less than twenty-four hours ago in their timeline, but Tared’s icy glares made the point convincingly enough. Creon, bless his heart, simply ignored him.
