“Amma, I almost killed him.”
“Maybe you should have.”
“You told me not to!”
“I know, I know…” She worked her feet into the breeches from where she sat then looked over at him. “Can you turn around, please?”
Damien snorted at her and swung to face the wall.
“Kaz, you too.”
The imp also huffed and turned.
“So, because that man saw the two of us together, he thinks I’m the one who stole you away from here?” She didn’t have to see his face to know he was grimacing.
Amma stood, sliding the breeches up slowly over her bare legs, body aching from the night of heavy drinking. “Well, it probably doesn’t help that I sort of staged a little bit of a kidnapping when I left…”
“Youwhat?” Damien whipped back to her, throwing his arms out.
“I said, turn around!”
He dropped his head back to stare at the ceiling, absolutely fuming, fingers drumming on elbows and tapping a foot as he muttered to himself about timing and modesty.
“I know it was…not good,” she said, finally getting the breeches up to her waist and tucking in the chemise.
“It is very,verynot good. In fact, I’d be impressed if I weren’t so angry.”
“I didn’t mean for anyone else to get wrapped up in all this, and I didn’t mean for someone toactuallyabduct me, which youdid,” she said with a bite as she strapped the leather bodice about her midsection and cinched it in. Shoving her feet into her boots, she tried to explain, “After I got the scroll from Aszath Koth, I planned to come right back here and pretend like I escaped my imaginary abductor. It was the only way I could leave this place, Damien—it’s not like baronesses are actually free to do whatever they please like blood mages are.”
Damien let out a grumble at that, face twisting up with words he ended up not saying.
“That’s why I tried to steal the scroll from you the other night and flee—if I was recognized once we got to Faebarrow and you were with me, it would look, well, exactly like this! And I knew if they found us, that they would hurt you, and I can’t let—” Amma’s voice cracked, eyes burning at the thought of what might happen to him if they were caught, but she held back the tears, knowing they would just make him angrier.
Damien’s arms fell from their crossed position, tapping toe coming to a halt as he looked away. “What were you even going to do with that scroll anyway? You’re a baroness—you already have a retinue of soldiers at your command and I’m sure a hundred different means of revenge against whatever imbecile wronged you.”
She sniffed, composing herself. “That’s too much to explain right now—we need to focus on leaving. If my father finds you, he’s only going to want the head.” Just as she strapped on her belted pouch with the Lux Codex inside, there was a thunderous knock on the door that felt like it had been right up against her skull. She brought a hand to her temple, gasping with pain.
Kaz turned to the door, hackles raised and growling, eyes jolting up to Damien who had frozen.
“By order of the Brineberth Watch and the Lordship of Faebarrow, open up.”
Amma’s mouth had gone dry, eyes pinging to the window, much too small for either of them to escape through, and she croaked out, “W-who is it?”
That shook Damien of his paralysis, looking sharply at her and letting his mouth fall open. She could only shrug back.
“Ammalie, is that you?”
At the stinging, authoritative voice, she straightened, answering reflexively, “Tia?”
There was a slam against the door, and the center of it bowed in.
Amma covered her mouth and jumped. Damien unsheathed his dagger, and Kaz’s canine tail alighted. “No!” she hissed, waving her hands at the two. “Don’t look like a threat!”
There was another crack, and the door bowed once more.
“I can handle this,” she said, heart racing like mad as the blood mage contemplated slicing his palm. “Damien, you have to trust me.”
“Trust you?” he hissed. “I don’t even know who you are.”
