One of the other crew slaps him on the back, and I wince. “We’re not supposed to call him that.”
“We’re not?”
“Tor said he’d snap my head off my neck if we didn’t stop.”
“Well, shit.”
I stifle a chuckle as they continue to talk about me as though I’m not in the room, right in front of them.
He’s not the last one to come into my makeshift med bay either. Seems like playing stupid games really does lead to winning stupid prizes tonight. In the next couple of hours, I deal with a splinter big enough to pierce right through one of the crew’s cheeks, a busted shoulder that needs a poultice, a couple of seriously dislocated fingers.
I work my tail off, hoping that each one will be the last so I can finally head downstairs and find Reva again. It feels like it must be the middle of the night by the time I’m finally done. I’m aching all over and it feels like my eyes are bruised when I blink.
Despite all that, energy surges through me as I bound down the second-floor staircase toward Reva’s room. It only hits me while I’m knocking on her door that I realise it’s probably far too late to disturb her.
There’s silence on the other side of the door, and I pause there. Maybe I should have headed back to my room to changemy shirt and wash my hands and face too. Before I can slink away though, the door to the neighbouring room opens, and Frannie pokes her head out of the door. “Well, hello there,” she says. “Reva’s downstairs, I think.”
I give her a nod of thanks and a little wave before starting to head off to the kitchen.
“Aster. Hold on,” she hisses before thrusting a lit lantern into my hand. “So you don’t fall to your death on the stairs.”
It’s a good call. This place is dangerous enough during the daylight. It’s silent on the ground floor, with not a soul to be found. My footsteps echo off the walls, and it feels like the sound is too loud for the space. I follow the faint glow of a lantern in the kitchen. Even before I step into the room, I’m hit with a deep sense of recognition in my gut. Somehow, I just know that Reva’s inside.
To me, she’s still the person etched into the other side of my soul, even if I’m no longer a piece of hers.
The kitchen is an old-fashioned one, like a larger version of my mum’s kitchen back on the farm. There’s a large wooden table in the centre of the room and a huge ceramic sink by one wall, with wooden countertops and cupboards all around the edges.
Once I get close enough for the lantern light to shine over her, I can see that she’s been in the water again.
She’s soaking wet.
My mind and body both riot as I stare at the thick ropes of hair clinging to her damp back and the way her clothes are wrinkled and sitting skin-tight.
How am I supposed to cope with speaking to her while she’s wet? I can barely handle her dry without wanting to touch her, taste her, to suck on her toes or whatever else she wants so that I can worship her.
I want her to climb inside my mind so she can see I never meant to hurt her.
“You’re still up,” she says, sounding surprised.
As if I’d be able to go to bed without knowing what she wants to speak to me about. After all, tomorrow she might have changed her mind.
It’s not like I sleep all that much even when the crew aren’t disturbing me. Too many nightmares to keep at bay. All the ones that had been on the back-burner of my mind have waded their way forward after seeing the sorceress again. Most nights, I wind up slipping into a restless doze where I’m convinced I’m still trapped in the dark basement, that I never escaped and the past weeks have all been a fever dream.
I don’t tell Reva that though. We started off on different pages when we first met. Not just because of me losing control of my magic and tying her to me with a false bond, either.
She felt sorry for me. Pitied me.
Because I was pretty pitiable. Pathetic, really.
But I’m going to do better. To be better. And maybe if she deigns to give me another chance at being someone to her, we can be different too.
Her sealskin is resting on the back of a chair, and I can’t stop myself from staring at it.
“I wanted to ask you about my skin,” she says. “I was hoping you could inspect it. See if you think there’s any way of getting Noush back.”
For a moment, I’m silent. It’s no small thing for her to ask of me or to trust me with, and a kernel of something joyous sparks inside me.
Maybe I’m her only option for fixing things. But I don’t care. This is her trusting me in some way, and I’m never going to take that for granted.
