Page 27 of Astarion

That had been embarrassingly close.

You got sloppy. You started gloating before the job was done. You know better. He did know better. But a good gloat was one of the few pleasures left to him, so he’d indulged, and, like any overindulgence, he’d paid the price.

He examined his trouser leg. The dark leather had clear tooth marks and had begun to tear along the seam. The wages of overconfidence were more repair work.

With a clap of wings, Rooftop Henry landed on a barrel next to him and said, “You owe me, bloodsucker.”

Of course. The evening needed only that.

“Right,” Astarion said. “What was it that you wanted, again?”

—

He considered simply ignoring Henry’s request—after all, how long would the bird really remember?—but decided against it. There was always the chance that Henry wouldn’t forget a grudge, and while most people would ignore anything he said about a vampire eating pigeons on the roof, Astarion wasn’t inclined to take the chance. Not after the prostitute had put him on his guard.

Anyway, it was on the way to the Guild locker where he stored most of his things.

So, with as much dignity as he could muster, he went into Redfur’s All-Night Fish and Chips on the dock and came out five minutes later with a large bottle of the house sauce.

Rooftop Henry landed next to him, small eyes bright with desire. “You got it? You got it?”

“Yes,” said Astarion, “my skills do extend to going up to a counter and ordering.” He set the bottle down on the sidewalk.

Henry pounced on it, jammed his beak into the cork like a living bottle opener, and popped it out. He pried the cork off his beak with one foot, then stuck most of his head inside the bottle. “Oh yeah,” Astarion heard, muffled by sauce. “Oh yeah, that’s the stuff.”

Astarion rubbed his face and wondered how his unlife had come to this.

“Are we square, then?” he asked.

Henry emerged from the bottle, beak smeared with sauce. “Yeah, we’re square.” He recorked the bottle with practiced ease. “You wouldn’t believe how this stuff goes with raw herring.” The seagull studied Astarion for a moment. “What was your name again?”

“Petras.”

“Right, right. And you’re a…thing. Tip of my tongue. Eats people, something like that?”

“Zombie,” Astarion said. “Petras the zombie. Just remember that.”

—

Dalyria was so grateful to get the vial of unicorn blood that for one horrible instant, Astarion thought she might hug him. Fortunately, the shutters slammed down behind her eyes, and her expression smoothed out before he was forced to make a hasty exit.

“Well, here is your bottle of unicorn scab,” Astarion said. “You can’t imagine the indignities I went through to acquire it. In fact, I would suggest against trying to imagine it. Harrowing is not too strong a word.”

“Ah.” Her eyes were riveted on the vial.

“Where did you even find out about this, anyway?”

“Eh? Oh. Gurgan was always trying to sell me the damn thing. Of course, I didn’t need it then. By the time I did, he was dead, and his replacement couldn’t get at it.”

Astarion might have asked why a well-known and highly regarded physician was on speaking terms with a two-bit black-market mage, but it was clear that Dalyria had already relegated him to the least interesting thing in the room. She gazed into the small reddish-brown vial with an expression that Astarion had seen only once before. It had been on the face of a young man who had gazed at him with eyes that blazed with hope and fear and desire, as if Astarion might be the answer to the dreams he’d never even had.

The memory curdled his stomach. “Enjoy your scab,” he said shortly, and let himself out. He was fairly sure that Dalyria didn’t even register that he’d gone.

“Speech?” Astarion said. “Why do I need a class on speech? I can speak just fine.”

His instructor sighed. It was a small room, and the sigh of an operatically trained dwarf echoed off the walls like a flight of startled doves. “Because,” she said, pulling at her sideburns, “speech is important. Your voice can change how people react to you. Think of Lady Erikinia. If she sounded frail and frightened, would you react the same way as you do now?”

Astarion had to admit he probably wouldn’t.