Page 57 of A Thief Among Fae

She’s in love with him. And they wouldn’t have disappeared into her bedroom if he didn’t feel the same.

Jealousy stabs my gut until I remind myself that I don’t care what the relationship between them is. After the tomb raid, my vow with Desmond will be complete, and I’ll never see either of them again. I shake my head, as if that will banish the knot of confusion in me.

“Why don’t we get your mind off of your training?” Maeve asks. The way she keeps glancing back at me makes me think she’s noticed my turmoil. “Tell me something I don’t know about you yet. Like your family.”

“My family?” Even Maeve’s curiosity isn’t enough to make me forget that I shouldn’t share too much about them. I shrug, then begin washing the bowl in the kitchen’s water basin. “We’ve been peasants for more generations than we have records back to. My parents are hard-working, and they’re probably cursing me right now for leaving them.”

Maeve chuckles. Her voice grows softer, but she doesn’t meet my gaze. “I left home, too.”

Surprised, I stop washing to watch her. “What was it like?”

“I was born in Vargesh. My father died in a clan dispute, and my mother was only half-orc. She struggled without him, and not only with money. The rigid honor codes, the adamancy against showing vulnerability. . . It was all too much for her.”

I fall still, shocked by her candidness.

Maeve’s voice trembles as she stares into the fire. “One day, she decided fitting in wasn’t worth her family, and she disappeared without a trace. Leaving me with my maternal grandparents.”

“I’m so sorry.” I hesitantly place my hand on her arm, hoping it’s consoling. “Were they kind to you?”

She laughs. It’s quiet, hollow, and dies into a sniffle. “No. My grandmother may not be an orc, but she still knew how to make her enemies cry. She’s a general, and a feared one at that. She only married my grandfather because she wanted a lineage with his brawn. He was his clan’s war champion. When my mother fled them to live in Avedor, she met my father and moved with him to Vargesh. And then I fled my grandmother, too, and now I’m here. I love the guild. We’re the ragtag family I’ve always wanted.”

“Maeve,” I murmur. Words fail me as I squeeze her forearm. Then I remember what Nikolai said to me about what it means to be here. They look out for each other. They laugh together and have a camaraderie so strong that nothing could break it. It’s what I dreamt my life would be like in the adventurers’ guild.

“I’m glad you found your family,” I tell her.

A smile dimples her freckled cheeks as she turns to hug me. “I am, too.”

Laughter echoes from behind Auri’s closed door. The bowl in the sink trembles until I rein my magic in. “I should go,” I tell Maeve. My throat feels too thick to swallow.

She purses her lips. “Alright. Thank you for helping me bake, Cyn. Treat yourself to some honey cakes tomorrow.”

I hold my fist over my heart, then leave for my room.

Chapter 17

Iopen my bedroom door and am surprised to find Min there in her lynx form. My waking hours are usually at odds with hers. She sleeps as a curled-up lynx during the day, and then ambles outside at night.

Right now, she’s dripping like a wrung-out mop. She shifts back to her goblin self and grabs a towel hung on her bed.

“Did it rain?” I ask her.

“No. I bathed in the river to wash the blood off my claws.” Her black eyes are steady, like she’s telling me the time or what she had for breakfast.

I choke on my own spit. She thumps my back until my throat clears. Then she tilts her head and asks, “Is it not customary to share such details with new friends?”

“You can share whatever you want,” I reply, but I hope she won’t elaborate on what she did tonight. “What do you like to do when you’re frustrated and don’t want to sleep?” I ask her, and then regret it. I’m not sure I want to know.

Min tilts her head in thought as she dresses. “That depends. Is your frustration of an emotional nature or of a sexual one? If it is the latter, I have noticed that several members of the guild are rather promiscuous. Perhaps someone would⁠—”

The memory of shirtless Desmond pouring a trail of water down his body flashes through my mind. My cheeks heat. “I’m not getting better at using my Gift to fight,” I interrupt before she can continue her suggestion. Besides, I’m not the woman he’s laughing with.

“Ah. Then practice is the only answer, is it not?” She sheathes so many daggers to her body that I lose count.

I sigh. “You’re right, but I definitely need a break from the training room.”

“There are many other places to practice bladework,” she replies. “The darkness of the forest at night makes sufficient cover. So do the Mythos sewers. Sound seldom escapes those tunnels.”

Maybe I’m mistaken, but I don’t think practice means the same thing to us. Yet being outside could help clear my head. Whenever I had a rough day at home, I’d retreat into the forest looking for barrows. Not that there were other places to run off to.