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“No,” Mat said. Clear and unequivocal, stated like fact:no.He could be insecure at times, mostly about his own value, but he never insulted me by doubting what I told him I felt for him. “I trust you.”
That made me warm and giddy and disproportionately happy, messing with my insides like only he could.
My northerner’s hands fidgeted again, fingers locking and unlocking with each other as if to hold himself back from reaching out to touch me. “I’m taking you to meet Zovisasha and Lilia,” he reminded me.
We’d talked about this during our ride here, after getting over the thrill of stealing the Commander’s horses. Directly approaching the castle risked Grachyov and his soldiers intercepting us before we could reach Panarina, and as we’d attempted to expose the man’s treacheries against the regent after Kolya Panarin had confessed his role, there was a good chance that we’d end up diverted into somewhere dank and forgotten rather than escorted to the throne room. Mathias had told me that his friends knew a way into the castle, and I was curious to meet the women who had once…
Oh.
“Are you that worried about me meetingyourpast partners,mi cielo?” I asked, teasing. “All two of them, you promiscuous wench?”
Mathias huffed out a ragged breath. “I suppose there’s no point telling you to behave?”
“None,” I replied cheerfully. “Is this it?”
We’d come to a halt before a row of squat little houses, each joined to another by a shared wall. Through the tiny gaps between every second house I could see Stavroyarsk’s river, the water’s surface kept clear of ice by the frequent traffic passing up and down it; boats and rafts of all shapes and sizes. Glancing between a pair of houses that looked identical other than for their mirrored nature, down to the colourful green paint adorning the doors and the sea glass windchimes in the windows, he eventually jerked his head at the one on the right.
Had it been so long since he was last here that he’d forgotten where his friends lived? A flush of guilt passed through me at the thought: it had beenmewho had taken him from his life here, and while all I wanted was for him to be happy, I couldn’t deny how we’d met. If Mathias had been an inch less obstinate, or clever…or simply lesslucky,he might have faced his end in Quareh with those he cared for never knowing what had happened to him.
“Chimney,” he said now, watching me with a faintly amused expression as if he could read my thoughts like one of the Hearken, the fifth branch of Blessed that complemented the Voice, Touch, Scent and Sight. Five sense-based branches of magic, their origins lost to history but their deeds recorded through the eons. Miraculous cures, villainous compulsions, eerie prophecies: the Blessed did not number many but seemed to feature in a disproportionate amount of tales. Everyone loved hearing about magic used to save the day or threaten the hero, even if in reality, the Blessed were lumped with skills that were difficult to wield and merely put targets on their backs. Mat was lucky: as a prince, he wouldn’t be drafted into working as a seer, although I’d bet against anyone who tried to make him do what he didn’t want to do, royalty or no.
“Hmm?”
“Smoke coming out of the chimney,” he repeated patiently, gesturing at where it curled from the roof of the house on the right. “They’re in Lilia’s house today. You’ll always find them together; it’s just a matter of working out where.”
I followed him to the correct door, bemused, and he hammered his fist on the bright green wood in a distinctive pattern. High-pitched shrieks immediately sounded from inside the house, followed by excited chattering.
“It’s him!”
“I know it’shim,you-”
“Of course you know because I said it-”
“Just get the door-”
“I’m getting the door!”
The door opened to reveal a black-haired Mazekhstani woman with ivory skin, striking eyebrows, and full lips. She pursed those same lips as she looked at Mathias, her face completely expressionless as if it was a stranger who stood on her doorstep.
“No thank you,” she said politely, and shut the door again in his face.
I glanced at my lover, alarmed, only to find him grinning broadly. He shook his head and twisted the door handle, stepping through into the gloom beyond without waiting for an invitation. I followed with rather more hesitation, flinching as something fast and squealing andredpounced on my boy.
“Lilia!” Mat laughed, his voice muffled by the curls of copper hair that obscured his face as the woman hugged him tightly. He wrapped his arms around her slender waist and turned on the spot, diverting the momentum of her excitable leap into a spin so they didn’t both end up on the floor.
“Nathanael!” she exclaimed happily, clapping her hands to his cheeks and pushing them together to distort his face as one might do a child. He dropped her back to the floor and pulled out of her hold, glaring, before turning to the one who’d first opened the door.
“Zovisasha.”
The dark-haired woman narrowed her eyes. “You expect me to greet you with the same exuberance?” she asked him icily, jerking her chin at Lilia. “You disappeared for months without a word.”
“I was fuckingcaptured,” Mat said with clear indignance, only earning himself a dismissive snort and folded arms. He didn’t seem upset by her aloofness, turning to me and eagerly dragging me forward by the arm.
“This is-”
“We know who he is,” Lilia cut in.
“You two are the talk of the city,” Zovisasha added.
