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With one stubby finger, the elf traced the tub’s shape in the air and blinked.
A pop, a flash, and steam began to rise from the copper tub.
Sal dropped another coin into Bernie’s cupped palm before closing and bolting the door.
I set my satchel down next to the chair and gratefully sank into it. Supernatural constitution or no, weariness had officially set in.
“You want to go first?” she asked. “You look like you could use one.”
I had to sit with that one for a moment. Wondering if Sal meant that I looked filthy —which I probably did— or exhausted, which I definitely was.
“You go ahead,” I said, staring longingly at the tub. The steaming water looked like heaven, but the idea of sliding off my cloak and bathing under Sal’s watchful eye made my head feel light and strange.
“Suit yourself,” she shrugged.
With her back to me, she unbuttoned the leather vest and slung it on the bed. Beneath it, the straps of a harness concealed an arsenal that made the basket look like an actual picnic. The buckle must have been in the front because Sal removed it in one piece, carefully hanging it over the footboard. Seeing all that gleaming metal held my attention until I saw the scars.
Two long thick purple gashes right over her shoulder blades.
Mirror images of one another.
Wings.
“You’re Fae.”
I hadn’t known I said it out loud until Sal stiffened.
“No,” she said. I’m not.
“Yes,” I insisted, “You are.”
“No,” she argued, “I’m not.”
“But, your scars.”
Her angular shoulders jerked upward in a shrug. “Had them since I was a babe,” she said.
The idea of these kinds of wounds inflicted on one so young filled me with a flash flood of rage. “Haven’t you ever wondered have you got them?”
“Seeing as I was left in a picnic basket full of weapons on the doorstep of the Order’s fortress, not really.”
“And your powers?” I asked.
The muscles of her lower back flexed as she leaned forward to undo her boot buckles. “I don’t have any powers.”
“Yes, you do.”
“No, I don’t.”
“Yes, you really do.”
“No, I really don’t.”
“How do you explain the fact that you knew I wasn’t wearing petticoats?”
Sal turned to face me. My gaze helplessly drifted from her face to her breasts. Small but perfect, nipples hard and a dark auburn over the tawny globes. Below them, her ribcage was almost architectural in its graceful flare, narrowing into lean hips and the flat plane of a stomach interrupted by high-waisted trews.
“I could tell by how your hips moved beneath your skirt.”
