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“I do know how to move around unnoticed, you know. I used to do it all the time around the palace. How do you think I snuck out to see you all those times?”
Truth be told, I hadn’t thought about it in all that much detail. I was simply so astounded that she kept returning. Every time I went to our meeting spot, I expected her not to show. The princess of Skoiya and the poor little orphan girl? That may be a romance worthy of an epic poem, but epic poems are fiction.
And yet she always came. I would look up, and she would be there in front of me, her smile colored with joy and maybe a little bit of relief. As if she wasn’t quite sure I would be here this time, either.
It’s funny how I convinced myself I could leave her behind for good. It’s the most accomplished lie I’ve ever told.
I hook an arm around her waist and pull her into me. Juliette barely has time to make a surprised noise when I take her mouth. I keep fucking up my words, but I have never fucked up this. I kiss her with all the things I keep failing to speak, and when I finally lift my head, it turns out there’s really only one thing I need to say. “I love you.”
“I love you, too.” She’s breathless and flushed. I like her like that, but I can’t enjoy the sight, not until I know she’s safe.
“Go. Be careful.”
“I will.” She brushes a soft, sweet kiss to my lips. And then she’s gone.
I lean against the side of the building and watch her make her way to the door. She does exactly as I instructed, walking with her shoulders straight and her face angled away from the square. Within several racing beats of my heart, she disappears through the door to the parrot shop. I force myself to wait another minute or two before I amble past the shop and slip through the doors of the bar.
I almost expected something as magical and over the top as I’ve seen in other parts of this island, but this bar looks like exactly what it is. A bar. It’s a little lighter and airier than a lot of others I’ve been in, and it certainly cleaner, but the worn wooden bar could’ve been at home in a thousand others like it. My shoulders relax a fraction from sheer familiarity. I can do this. I have coaxed vital bits of information from more bartenders than I care to count. They hear everything, and the first place sailors stop when they’ve made landfall is either the brothel or the bar.
If there’s one thing sailors like to do, it’s brag. As a result, bartenders are the best informants a pirate captain can ask for. Most of them can be purchased for the right price, too.
I make it three steps into the room, carried by that feeling of familiarity, before my brain catches up with what my eyes already noticed. The bar itself isn’t the only familiar thing in this room. The man leaning against it, in an almost identical position to what he took up this morning, is the hunter.
Fuck.
16
MAURA
I almost back right out the door. We need the exit spell, but there are other ways to get it, and those ways won’t involve interacting with the Cwn Annwn again. It’s too late, though. He looks up and sees me before I take the first step.
Fuck.
There’s nothing for it. I move casually to the bar but make no effort to take the spot next to him. The room is half full, but most people seem to be nursing a hangover instead of pursuing a new one. It’s all blurry eyes and slumped postures. The bartender alone seems immune, moving behind the bar with a pep in her step and a bright smile.
She turns that smile on me as I take a spot as close to the door as possible. She’s a pretty one. Her long, straight dark hair is shaved on one side, revealing a delicately pointed ear. A half elf. Her coloring is much more human than River’s, her skin pale and her eyes as dark as her hair. She’s dressed in pants, a perfectly tailored shirt, and suspenders. When she speaks, her voice is low and throaty. “What can I get you, lovely?”
Even knowing the bartenders tend to come in only a few different varieties, and flirty is just as common as cranky, I’m not entirely unaffected. Or maybe it’s the watching Cwn Annwn who makes me so nervous. I try for a smile, but I’m not sure I pull it off. “I’ll start with a drink. Whatever’s best here.”
“You again.” To my horror, Bowen slides his drink down the bar and moves closer to me. Were this anyone else, I might think he was attempting to hit on me, but there’s a keen look in his eyes that speaks to a wolf on the hunt.
