Or maybe it had been because he saidthey needed to talk, but she had come to this dinner prepared to make her exit from Topp Blatz. And because people did not often survive lying to their Crown Prince, Elysia had thought to make it real.
Just a pinch of zorela in her soup was all it took.
The person she got it from just called it pukeweed.
She doubled over in her chair with a gasp, her insides writhing.Gods, I hope I measured right. She had plans for tonight and really couldn’t afford to die. Oh, gods, she was going to puke all over at her favorite restaurant. Why couldn’t they have gone somewhere she hated?
Topp moved in a blink and was crouched at her feet, running a hand over her face.
“You’re burning. Are you going to be sick on me, Parker?” His voice, furious moments before, was now the voice that she knew few ever heard.
She nodded miserably.
He stood, sweeping her up onto her feet, and demanding her cloak. Top hat clutched in one hand and Elysia swaddled like a sweaty babe, he guided her, dazed and stumbling, outside.
Legs weak, and experiencing an altogether new kind of regret, Elysia held back a belch and swayed on her feet.This. Was such a mistake.She closed one eye, trying to steady herself and failing. Topp stopped in the alley of the Boar’s Bones, still holding her close and looking down with such concern that guilt rose up alongside her bile. The winds blew around them, tussling their hair, and a look crossed Topp’s face that she couldn’t distinguish. He buried his nose close to her as he held her and sighed, cursing more to himself than anything.
He didn’t say a word, though, just held her hair and stroked her back as she retched and heaved until she was limp in his arms, her eyes barely staying open.
She wasn’t sure how he knew she’d rather go to her flat than her rooms at the castle, but he got her home in a hurry, and rested beside her on the bed.
Her head pounded and her mouth was dry. He needed to leave, godsdamn it all, he needed to leave, or there was no point in her vomiting like she’d been exorcized of some putrid ailment.
“Topp.”
“Hmm?”
“Go home, will you?” Her voice cracked, and she tried to roll away from him. She must have puked more than just in the alley and simply couldn’t remember. It seemed like she could cross off healing and herbalism from the list of viable career options. There wasn’t a chance in the realms she’d dosed the zorela right.
Topp tugged on the blanket, rolling her back into his side. “And why would I do that?”
“Let me die in peace, for the gods’ sake,” she muttered into her pillow.
He paused. “If you hadn’t just lost your weight in fluids, I would properly let you know how I feel about you saying such things, sweet poison.”
Her eyes darted toward him nervously.Sweet poison?That was new. And a little too on the mark.
She’d willingly barfed her brains out in front of the crown prince. If the undead gods had an ounce of mercy in their bones, then he did not know what she had done.
But he stood from the bed, filling up the room with the crackling energy that was him, and made her flat suddenly seem a hair too small for them both, only to do something totally normal—he grabbed a cup and set about making her tea.
He opened her tea tin only to find it empty and sighed. “Seriously, Lys? You steal it from the castle, anyway.”
“Apologies, I’ll be sure to amp up my thieving as soon as I’m right again.” She shifted to sit up a little taller amongst the pile of pillows.
Elysia rested her eyes. “Thank you for getting me home.” She opened her eyes to find him looking at her intently, but she couldn’t quite hold his gaze. Not tonight.
He sat down beside her, the bed dipping with his weight, and brought his lips to her head, speaking against her hair. “You owe me a date. And about six months’ worth of sleepovers. I don’tcare if I snore, or you have to work at the crack of dawn. I hate waking up and worrying about you.”
He kissed her hair and then he was gone. The door shut. And with its closure, all of their unasked questions slid back down to the unlit place between them—the place where all of their secrets lie with tangled limbs and eyes shut tight—never knowing the other.
Chapter 11
Elysia gaveherself two whole minutes after Topp left to pull herself together, and then she dragged her sorry self to the washstand where she scrubbed her teeth and body as if she could wash the feeling of sick down the drain. Toweled off, she worked scented oils into her skin, wishing to bring some life back into her worn out body.
Pukeweed.
Understatement of the century.
