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“One swallow,” he admonished.
Her fingers fleetingly touched his as she took it from his hand. “Will you have some, too?”
“I’m on duty.”
“If I promise not to try to climb the fence while you’re sprawled, drunken, on the edge of the pond?”
“Someone could still break in and try to hurt you,” he pointed out. “I have to be ready to fight them off.”
She made a scoffing sound. “No one has ever tried to breakin,”she said. “Although the high divine assures me it could happen. He says the guards are here to keep me safe because there are people who want to kill me.”
“Killyou?” Brandon repeated, horror igniting along his bones. “Who? Why?”
She shrugged pettishly. “Some group of malcontents who believe that the blood in my body renders me an abomination. They want the world to go back to a time before people like me existed. He even has a special name for them. The Reversionists. Which sounds so much nobler than deranged murderers, don’t you think?”
“Are you afraid? That he might be telling the truth?”
“No. The only person who’s ever offered me any threat is the high divine himself.” She lifted the bottle to her mouth and took a slow, deliberate taste. Brandon could just make out the expressions that crossed her face—surprise, uncertainty, intrigue. She took another guarded swallow.
“That’s strong stuff,” she said, clearly trying not to cough. “And it tastes like—I can’t even describe it. Like a fruit that almost rotted, but then got burned in a fire instead.”
“Not a bad description,” he said, laughing.
She raised the bottle again, but he pulled it down before she could drink. “You shouldn’t have any more. You’ll be sorry in the morning.”
“I’ve barely had any!”
“Trust me.”
She held it out to him. “Then you have some. Or I swear I’ll gulp the whole thing down.”
It was an empty threat, because he could have wrested the bottle away from her before she managed more than a few sips, but he took it from her hand anyway. “Oh, all right. One drink.”
“And then I’ll have one more. And then we’ll be done because—you’re right. I can already feel it.”
He put the bottle to his mouth, unable to ignore the fact that her lips had touched the rim just moments before. If he was going to get drunk on anything tonight, he knew, it would not be the wine. He held the liquid on his tongue for a moment, savoring its rich and mournful taste, then let it scald down his throat. Not as good as his father’s, he thought, but potent anyway.
“That’ll warm you up on a cold night,” he said, setting the bottle down between them.
“So is this how you spent your day off?” she asked. She had leaned forward again to trail her hand in the water. He saw the faint ripples from the movement of her fingers under the surface. “Stocking up on Zessin alcohol?”
“And a few other things.”
“Are you homesick?”
“I wasn’t—until I got there.”
“What else did you buy?”
“Some spices for the cook, if she wants to try them. Some food in the market. And a present for you.”
“For me? How delightful. I love presents.”
He reached into the rucksack again, finding the zippered interior pocket where he had carefully stowed the chazissa. He had insisted that the shopkeeper wrap it in two layers of fabric to protect the charms against the jostling of travel, so what he handed over to Villette was a lumpy parcel of worn cloth.
She took it a bit gingerly, shaking the water off her fingers. “And will I know what I’m looking at when I open this?”
“I think so, yes.”
