Page 116 of The Thief and the Traitor Bride

Nore suppressed a smile. “I’ll send a note tomorrow,” she said.

After dinner, Nore entertained the group with more of what Ola referred to as “wine tricks.” Once she was through identifying at least seven varietals by taste, she spent the rest of the evening listening and trying her best to read body language as the others traded stories. Garna and Ola left first, leaving Nore and Caspian alone with Locke and the Viper—but even then, Nore could not make heads nor tails of what they were or were not.

At the end of the evening, the Viper walked them down from the dining room as Locke’s guard bore her away. He summoned a magelight as they reached the dark bailey, the light flaring gold in his palms. Nore watched it shimmer in his hands, catching on his rings. Something about it—the gold, maybe?—caught her attention.

“Thank you for coming,” he said, his voice softer out of the dining room. Caspian had his hand against Nore’s back, his palm burning against her shirt. “We don’t get much interesting company.”

Nore doubted that, but her head was too clouded with wine—at a table that small, it was difficult to water it down without looking conspicuous. “It was a lovely evening,” she said. “Please pass on our regards to her majesty.”

She watched his face, but his expression did not change. “That I will,” the Viper said, calling up their carriage.

“When were you going to tell me you met Locke?” Caspian asked as they arrived back at their room. He’d been oddly quiet on the carriage ride back—or perhaps he’d been as quiet as he always was with her now—and she couldn’t stop looking at his mouth, imagining the shapes of the words he wasn’t saying. Remembering the sound of his voice as he’d said, Of course I want you.

Maybe she liked working with him a little too much.

Nore sat heavily on the edge of the bed, kicking off her boots. Her veins were still heavy with wine. “I would’ve,” she said, “if I’d known it was Locke.”

“How did you not?”

Locke had lied to the others, but Nore had no reason, now, to lie to Caspian. “She was just a woman in the woods,” Nore said. She pulled off her clothes, throwing them into a pile on the chair, and slipped into bed in her thin shift instead of bothering with a nightdress. She did not care what Cas saw—none of it was new anyway, and none of it really mattered in the end, which he was making abundantly clear. She slid over to her side (which was actually usually Caspian’s side, on this voyage, but had actually been her side in their marriage) and curled into a ball. “We talked about Nettlepool. How it’s shit.”

Caspian laughed—and how she treasured the sound. Nore turned her head, smiling into her pillow. It smelled like his hair. “Why do you still live there if you hate it?” The mattress shifted as he slid in next to her. She felt the heat radiating from him, all the way down her bare back.

“My life is there,” Nore said.

“Your life could move,” Caspian said. “You could choose to do something else. Be somewhere else.” He was close—Nore felt his breath on the back of her neck. “Gods, I bet you live in the same apartment.”

Nore was quiet. Too quiet.

Caspian laughed again, aghast. “I can’t believe it. You do.”

“It feels like home,” Nore said, defensive.

“Finch, the heating doesn’t work unless you calculate a bizarre spell and kick it three times in the correct pipe,” he said.

“Good thing I know the correct pipe,” she said primly.

“The kitchen fills with smoke any time you attempt to cook anything.”

“I rarely cook.”

He snorted. “So that hasn’t changed.”

She turned to face him. He’d blown out the light before he got into bed, leaving the room in darkness. She edged forward, tangling her legs with his under the covers.

“I can’t leave Nettlepool,” Nore said.

He snorted. “How much is your indenture worth nowadays?”

Nore pointedly did not answer. It was dark, so dark she could only barely see the gleam of his eyes.

“I know you know the number. I’m not a fool.”

Nore did know the number, and it was too high to consider—she owed Celestine her entire life. Of course her life and the means that created it would come at a cost. “I can’t leave Nettlepool,” Nore said, softer, a confession.

“You could,” he said. “You’re smart, Finch. Talented. Well-connected. You could go wherever you want.”

She swallowed down the lump in her throat, which she couldn’t begin to understand. She couldn’t leave because the duchess wanted her there, and her work was there, and she’d vowed to stay where the duchess and her work were before she was even old enough to understand what half of it meant. But this was not the time to bring up those facts—Caspian, who was so much braver than she’d ever been, would never let himself be shackled to something as simple as vows.