Right now, all I can think of is how easily he hides behind his playboy façade. And maybe it worked before, but I’ve seen behind it now, and I don’t think such truths can be forgotten.
All the things we won’t or shouldn’t say hold fast within us, and we’re saved from the silence when a bang on the door rattles around the small room.
‘Some of your mates are here,’ a young voice calls out.
Someof our mates?
‘One minute,’ I yell back.
‘Ahh and just when we were about to start having fun.’ Kyor grins at me and I offer him a withering look as I help him up.
‘We were not going to have any fun,’ I reply. ‘Unless you find sleeping fun?’
He winces, exaggerating the action, as if the wound comes from my words and not his injured shoulder.
‘You slay me, madam,’ he says dramatically, making me smile despite myself.
When I’m sure he’s steady on his feet, I open the door.
‘Take us to them,’ I instruct the young boy waiting on the other side.He can’t be much more than twelve, perhaps younger. He’s painfully thin and the stale roll sits guiltily in my stomach.
But the kid’s not even looking at me, let alone listening. Instead, his owlish eyes are fixed on Elska. ‘Etta’s tits! A real dire wolf!’
To prove a point, Elska gnashes her teeth at him, clacking at empty air. The kid stumbles back, eyes still wide, grin in place. ‘Jovey’ll never believe this,’ he mutters.
‘What’s your name?’
‘Ryan.’
‘Nice to meet you, Ryan. Take us to where our friends are and I’ll give you a coin.’
‘Take us into a trap,’ Kyor growls, ‘and I’ll let the wolf eat you. She’s hungry.’
‘N-no …’ the kid stammers. ‘I won’t trick you, mister. Promise. This way.’
Elska moves close to the kid’s side, as if she’s ready to make good on Kyor’s threat, and it’s a testament to how tough slum kids are that he doesn’t shrink away from her, although his pace is notably brisk.
He leads us through the streets that I was too exhausted to note the twists and turns of as we stumbled through the slums yesterday.
My assumption is that he’s going to take me to a home, perhaps Lofty’s again, but instead, we reach a small back alley, where I spot Ruben, Benny, and Caz propped up against a less-than-stable wall.
I look for Loch and the Sannings with a quick scan around me, but there’s no sign of them.
Ruben’s eyes light up as they catch mine, and he flashes me a warm grin, though Benny and Caz are wearing notable poker faces, as if they don’t even recognise who I am.
Next to them, perched on the top of a barrel, is Lofty.
‘He looks better this morning,’ Lofty remarks with a nod at Kyor. ‘Good to see.’
I glare at the kid. ‘Our business here is done.’
‘It was,’ he agrees, keeping his voice real low. ‘It absolutely was.’ He flicks his gaze pointedly to my white-blonde hair. ‘But then I made some connections. Even here, we’ve heard of the gifted. The Lady Rose.’ He then looks at Kyor. ‘And of course,’ tone mocking, he continues, ‘our dear Prince of the Morathkian Realm and his mighty dire wolf. It seems to me that I saved a royal life, and as such, something a little …moreis required.’
‘We had a deal,’ I snap flatly.
‘Oh we did, but things change, don’t they,Bryony? Once upon a time, you were a slum rat, and now you’re a lady. The kids in the slums, they tell your story at bedtime now: the tale of the Lady Rose. It’s a better tale than that of the Myrkrs and Mortidem, I can tell you that.’
The Lady Rose.
