She thought she just might.
“Still don’t want to talk about magic?”
She shook her head. “Tell me instead what you did to make the king so angry.”
“Besides being blamed for his daughter ruthlessly using me to escape his watchful eye and run off with one of my half-brother’s cousins, a rather handsome but vapid elf from Tòrr Dòrainn?”
“Aye, that,” she said, feeling entirely unsympathetic. “I have the feeling you didn’t stop there.”
“I’m flattered you have such confidence in my abilities,” he said. He stretched his legs out and rubbed his knees as if they pained him. “To be honest, I might have slipped over the walls and helped myself to the odd, unattended spell whilst His Majesty was napping.” He paused. “I may have done that more than once.”
“Typical.”
“Isn’t it?” he asked. “I believe I’ve become predictable.”
“I believe you’re fortunate to be alive,” she said seriously. “What else?”
He clasped his hands together and looked at them for a moment or two before he looked at her.
“I fear I may have indeed inconvenienced His Majesty with more than just the simple pilfering of a spell or two.” He glanced at the physick still snoring happily on the sofa before he looked back at her. “’Tis possible that I may have used one or two of the rivers running deeply beneath the palace for my own nefarious purposes. Power and magic tend to travel more easily along water than land.”
“Of course they do,” she said, wondering if she were the one who should have been alarmed that such a thing was beginning to sound perfectly reasonable. “That was part of your plan to, ah—”
“Steal a goodly portion of the world’s magic and trade it for spells and whatnot?”
She nodded.
“It was a complete miss, as I believe I’ve reluctantly admitted before. You would think that my failure in the same would have mollified our irascible dwarf-king, but apparently not. Perhaps he takes his rest more seriously than I suspected.”
Apparently so if the king’s anger had burned that brightly for so long. She wasn’t entirely sure that he wouldn’t reconsider any bribes sent his way, so perhaps they would be wise to be on their way while the winds were still favorable.
“We could bolt, you know.” She paused, then looked at him seriously. “I could, you know…” She wiggled her fingers only to have him catch both her hands in his quickly.
“I think you shouldn’t,” he said. He released her and sat back. “I can’t stop what you set loose, you know. Not at the moment.”
“I didn’t ask you to,” she said quickly.
“And so you didn’t,” he agreed, “though you shouldn’t be embarrassed by the same. Even the most pampered of Nerochian princes didn’t work his first spell without some sort of mentor hovering helpfully at his elbow. But lest that prove to be an uncomfortable direction for our conversation, perhaps we should let that topic lie. We’ll be safe enough for a day or two.” He nodded at her. “You should rest.”
“I’m not sure I can.”
He smiled. “My visage is just that distracting, isn’t it?”
It was, though she wasn’t going to add to his arrogance by admitting as much. “I’m just worried we’ll never escape,” she said. “I’m not sure why I think that would be an improvement on our situation. Things aren’t much safer outside the gates than inside them, are they?”
“Not much,” he agreed, “but we must face that eventually. If I can keep myself alive here for a day or two whilst you’re about your restorative sleeping, we’ll make a dash out the front gates and see what’s left of the world. You might distract what hunts us with the same sort of fiery business you used on our reluctant host.”
“I was angry,” she said. “The king was going to have you executed.”
“Still would if it didn’t mean forfeiting that very fine pony in his stables,” he said. “And don’t think I don’t appreciate your defending me, for I do. I would wax rhapsodic about it, but then I would weep and that is a sight you definitely do not want to witness.”
“Do you ever weep?” she asked.
“Over poorly cooked beef,” he said. “Occasionally.”
She had surprisingly vivid memories of waking to his tears on her face several days earlier. She looked at him and suspected he was revisiting that same moment.
“I thought you were dead,” she said quietly.
