Page 108 of The Thief and the Traitor Bride

Nore reached over, tracing one of his scars. “You didn’t, though,” she said.

“No,” he agreed. “I… I like being an amalgamate. Moving between systems. Learning new magic.” He watched her hand, transfixed as she followed the lighter pattern of his scars over his skin, tripping over his veins, avoiding the dark ink that marred his skin. “I like the freedom it grants me.”

“So you… left?” she asked.

He shrugged. “If you choose to deny them, to leave, you can never go back again. You can’t keep their power, either. At least—not all of it.” His brow furrowed, another frown building. “But in payment for time given and devotion to your training, as a blessing from their fold, you get to keep one skill you mastered and take it with you from the mountains.”

“And you chose invisibility,” Nore said.

“I did,” Caspian agreed. “It seemed useful.” He smirked, reaching to grab her hand. She thought he’d make her stop—but he only took her finger, gently moving it back to the line of his right wrist. “In training, you learn to make the most valuable runes easiest to access. So this,” he said, tracing her finger over the marking, “is agility. This is speed. Then—”

“Invisibility,” Nore said, skimming her hand over the ink.

“Yes,” he said. He moved his hand, flipping up his other wrist. “Balance. Divination. Dozens of others over my body, but you’ve seen the scars. On my left thigh, I have control of the elements; on my right, I have control of the mind. Influence.” He shrugged.

“You could’ve taken that with you?” Nore asked. “And you chose not to?”

Caspian sat back. “I never liked that sort of manipulation,” he said. “Always left me feeling queasy.”

Nore nodded, accepting that answer. After all, it was in line with what she knew of him. Of course he did not like manipulation like that—she had always suspected his internal code was just as obfuscated for her as it was ironclad for him.

She reached over, running her finger over another one of those scars. “Are you ever going to tell me what she’s paying you to do this?”

“Not in a thousand decades,” he said, catching her fingers. She let him, turning her hand up. He cupped her hand in both of his, running his thumb over the line of her palm, so gently it ached. “What are you thinking, Finch?”

She looked up at him. She was thinking that he should’ve stayed, that everything would be easier if he had never left the Inkmen. She was thinking how grateful she was that he had left, that he had come back. She was thinking that they worked well together—that the area where her thoughts ended and his begun was narrowing, and soon, he would be able to understand her again without words, with only a look. She was thinking that this was a dangerous game they were playing, one she no longer knew the rules to.

“Nothing, Caspian,” she said.

He leaned forward, his elbows on the table, her hand still caught between his. “You never used to call me that.”

She did not look away fast enough, her cheeks heating. His expression changed as he must’ve seen something on her face that Nore tried, desperately, to hide.

Because really, what would happen if she started calling him Cas again? If she backslid that last little bit into the people they used to be? Maybe she’d forget that night that he nearly killed her. Maybe she’d forget what it felt like to be on the receiving end of his assassination attempts.

Maybe she’d forget that, no matter how much he tried to reassure her, he was not actually harmless at all. And no matter what he did or didn’t believe about their truce, she was still the one who, not so long ago, had asked for his life.

“There is naught more we can do,” Lord Taran of Locke said, watching as the sea darkened with blood.

“No, there is nothing,” Aban responded. She did not say, Me. I am the last thing to give. I am the only thing left that matters to you.*

*Author’s note: Artistic liberties have been taken. Perhaps it is a matter of sentimentality, as this was a favored story of my grandmother, told to me often in my youth.

Excerpt from a children’s tale, recorded and translated by Professor Terlo Augustine, included in Lochan Tales and Variants, one year post-destruction (1619 UCE)

twenty

NORE STOPPED BY THE desk clerk first thing the next morning with a note for Gail: In the middle of something. Possibly tenuous. Avoid me for a few days, if you can.

She hoped it would be enough to buy the time she needed.

Terlo was waiting for her in the dining area when she arrived downstairs for breakfast. Caspian was still out and would be for a while; he was retrieving a book for Terlo from one of the farther villages after his training session, then looking into Idistran noble sigils.

Nore allowed a hug—Terlo was far more physically affectionate than she had ever allowed herself to be—and sank down into the empty chair. “How was yesterday?” Nore asked as she sat down, taking a long sip of the coffee that they’d ordered for her.

“Productive,” they said, opening their notebook. “There’s not much to be found in the smaller villages—too new, I think. I spoke to a friend in the archives here in Maerin, and it looks like the most valuable items the Isle holds were taken to the fortress for cataloging and restoration post-Resurrection. Some have been returned—there is a remarkable display of ancient fishing charms in the harbor museum. The detail, you wouldn’t believe, Nore. Fish with iridescent scales, leather and cloth items preserved after all these years, too. Apparently, in the oldest tradition of the Isle, for bound mage/well pairs—that is, those who have officially committed to a sort of monogamous exchange of power—they had tokens they carried, especially when they went abroad, to symbolize the—”

“Terlo,” Nore said kindly, laying a hand over the professor’s. “This is wonderfully fascinating. But was there anything about the medallion?”