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She snort-laughed at that.
‘So what is she to you, then?’ I added. ‘If love doesn’t have anything to do with it?’
‘Oh, I have decided it would vastly improve my quality of life to have her,’ Naxi said without a moment of hesitation. Her tone was dreamy, her tug at the shawl around her shoulders strangely brusque in comparison. ‘To the extent that I think I might need her. Not that you should tell her that, of course – she’d run away screaming.’
I managed a laugh. ‘Can’t in all honesty say I’d blame her.’
Her grin was wolfish. ‘Good thing she’s chained down, then.’
Gods have mercy. For the first time, I felt a stab of guilt for what I was about to do – not for Lyn and Tared and their unjustified trust in my discretion, but rather for Thysandra and the utter insanity I was about to inflict on her. Then again …
Whenever I closed my eyes tight enough, I could still see Creon’s binding shatter on the rocks of the Cobalt Court.
Perhaps she deserved a little insanity for that alone.
‘So,’ I said, voice lighter than my heart, ‘how about a key?’
Naxi’s head whipped around to me.
And it was in that moment that I understood exactly why Lyn and Tared hadn't trusted her with the same proposal – why they hadn't been willing to let her come anywhere near the cell in which Thysandra was spending her captivity. The look in those wide cornflower eyes … Like a starving wild animal catching a first glimpse of its prey, thoughts behind that bright blue façade narrowing to nothing but the hunt and the kill. Primal. Instinctive.
And terrifying.
A second realisation clicked in my mind as I sat there and held her gaze, grateful now for the hand I’d pressed against my dress: that I did not need to hold back. That there was no need now for me to be decent and empathic and fair, because the pink, sharp-teethed little creature before me was none of those things and cared about none of them, either – thatIcould be terrifying too, and she would never hold it against me.
If anything, I figured it might amuse her to no end.
‘A key?’ she repeated, and the tone in which she spoke the words sent a shiver down my spine, low and hungry and full of warnings. ‘To her cell?’
‘Hm-hmm,’ I said.
‘Forme?’
‘Yes.’ My smile was like one of Miss Matilda’s exquisite accessories – crafted with military precision to dazzle and impress. ‘With a few conditions, of course.’
She let out a sharp-edged, impatient peal of laughter. ‘Oh, do you want to bargain?’
‘Not in that way,’ I said slowly. ‘People would see the mark, and I don’t have permission for any of this. We might both get in trouble once they figure it out.’
Her eyes narrowed. ‘Lyn and Tared don’t know?’
‘No.’ I gave an apologetic shrug. ‘Because Lyn and Tared are extremely decent people who want only the best for you and all of us, and I strongly doubt they would agree to actually threaten you in order to keep the Underground safe. So they’d rather keep you away and make sure there’s no need for any of that unpleasantness, I suppose.’
‘Yes.’ Again she laughed. ‘And you’re not that decent?’
I thought of Khailan’s bland eyes – of the hand trembling in mine – and couldn’t suppress another shiver. ‘I’m starting to find out I might not be.’
‘Good,’ she said, that little tongue flicking past her lips again as if to taste the change in the air between us. ‘Good. We won’t win the war with decency. Tell me what you want.’
‘You can visit her,’ I said. This, finally, was the part for which I’d prepared, the part I had actually thought about in the time it had taken me to find her. ‘You can talk with her as much as you want, about anything you want. But she is not to leave her cell, and you won’t make any bargains or deals with her without asking me or Creon about it first. If you violate any of those terms …’
Her lips parted a fraction as I paused, as if she could bite the truth out of me.
‘You said you expect Thysandra to vastly improve your quality of life.’ The words sounded so strangely calm from my lips – as if this was a daily routine for me, threatening desperate little demons in prison halls. ‘Trust me to vastly diminish it if you hurt anyone in the Underground for her. And if you’re now thinking it’s worth some unpleasantness as long as you have Thysandra in the end, keep in mind I may as well removeherfrom your life, too, if you cross the line. Permanently, if I need to.’
A heated blush rose on her girlish face. But whatever she saw in my eyes, she did not laugh or object; there was no resentment or self-pity in her curt nod. ‘Understood.’
‘Good.’ I drew in a deep breath and slid my hand into my pocket, then hesitated a last time as my fingers found the smooth steel of the key. I should just give it to her and get it over with, of course. I’d done what I’d come here to do.One thing, Creon had said, and wasn’t this plenty to qualify?
