The pain on Rue’s face after he ran her through kept me steady.
“Don’t… him away.”Those were her last whispers to me. Three words I nurtured in my heart for years when I had nothing but rage living there. They would finally be satisfied at my own hand.
Another hour passed slowly. The silence surfaced more buried memories, and not the ones I needed. Noth fighting withthe local druid Grove when one of them snapped at me. Me accidentally coming across him washing his waterfall of hair, my feet rooted to the floor in awe. The moment after he almost killed me in retaliation for the cold iron attempt when he whispered in my ear, “We’re even now.”
I often wondered why he didn’t finish the job then, when I sprawled on the cold stone at his mercy, but it was just like his smirking hubris to play with me more before we finished each other.
Noth and I had only lived in proximity for a year. Such a short time but both of our intensity made it stretch into a lifetime. I shifted uncomfortably in the chair. I needed to think about Rue. The hours she put into teaching me witchcraft. But if I could be honest with myself, the hours she spent being my mother in all but blood mattered more. She remembered my birthdays, scolded me when my endless energy got me in trouble. With Evie, she counseled patience. I wished I had listened to that more. Once she died, all the tolerance I cultivated evaporated. There was only revenge left in its place. Vengeance against Noth, against myself, against the world.
Rat Face breathed through the night and I must have fallen asleep in the chair because the loudest sneeze in existence jerked me upright like I had been pulled on a string. Checking to see if it blew out the windows, instead, the watery light of dawn struggled to light the sky.
“Pumpkin, you’re here.” Noth croaked, sitting up in sweat-soaked sheets. “Unless that’s the fever.”
How did he not die? His face flushed and his eyes shone but Noth sat in the bed, distinctly alive. His breathing labored through his lungs.
“I’m here.” I left off the ‘unfortunately’. It wouldn't help either of us and it was pretty obvious.
“I don’t feel good. My nose is all stuffed up and my back hurts.”
“Poison will do that to you.” Fuck it. He would figure it out anyway.
His spine hit the wall behind him as he clutched his middle. “I haven’t had a cold in a hundred years. What did you do, Pumpkin?”
A cold!? His nose ran, his eyes watered and he coughed again. He was one handkerchief away from pitiful. “You’re really bad at this murder stuff and now I don’t feel good. You have to take care of me until I feel better.”
What the-?My jaw clenched. I failed again. If he got to his territory, I would never make it past an entire race of monsters guarding his back. I had to end this now. I stood beside his bed with a palm knife aimed at his chest. My hand came down in a feeble stab at his heart, laden with the memories of the night, but he struck quickly enough to grab my wrist.
“I’m too sick to play right now, Pumpkin. Get me Gertrude! I need her.”
I ripped my hand back. Who the fuck was Gertrude?Did Noth have a blushing bride waiting in Allfenheim he didn’t tell anyone about? The flavor of black tourmaline hit my tongue. I didn’t want to admit it but I knew the taste of jealousy.
“I need some water.” Noth curled on his side like a dramatic little pill bug and moaned.
But Godds strike it, now I needed to know who Gertrude was. So I trudged downstairs and got him a pitcher of water and a cup.
Stomping back upstairs, I meant to roughly shove him awake. Or pour the water all over him. I really did. But he looked so vulnerable curled on top of the blankets, breathing through his lush mouth. No one but Noth was adorable when sick. How did he manage that, wrong way on the bed? I sat on the edge with a full cup of water. I leaned over him, careful of his spill of hair. All of his pomp and circumstance stripped away had me rubbing his back in smooth circles.
“Here’s some water, Rat Face.”
He cracked a bleary eye open. “I’m not a fan of that nickname.”
His voice was unfairly low, with his throat all scratchy, in a way that rubbed my thighs together. I didn’t understand how the girlie bits still had anything to say when I was trying to get him dead and he was sliming all over the sleeve of his shirt.
“Good. I’m not a fan of Pumpkin either. Now who isGertrude?”
I realized that I was on the receiving end of what Evie must have gone through when her ex paraded around town crowing that he’d fucked both of us. The bitter bile in the back of my throat burned with an ironic fire. Somehow my hand still rubbed tight circles over his back as he sat up and took the cup.
“That’s amazing. You’re the best assassin I’ve ever had. The one that came for me when I turned seven was an absolute trash beast.”
People tried to kill him as a child?What?
Noth groped for his pack next to his bed and pulled out a silk handkerchief of all things and honked his blade-like nose into it like he hadn’t just said the most tragic thing I’d ever heard. I stumbled into my feelings as they collided with all the memories brought up while I waited for him to die.
“I’m sorry, Noth.”
“S’okay,” he slurred. “Dad gave me Gertrude to make up for it. She was all small and just sprouting new leaves, not like the majestic Queen she is now.”
I never thought I would be relieved to hear the word ‘leaves’ in a sentence. Noth’s face without the sneer he wore like his life depended on it, turned out to be a beautiful thing. I’m sure he would have rather a more manly comparison to his dark glory or something equally ridiculous. But I couldn’t deny he was delicately gorgeous when he got sick.
