An actual laugh rolled out of her mouth. He wasn’t wrong. The combination of sweat, mud, and the gods knew what from the Relaclave streets made a terrible combination.
She’d been staying here for weeks rather than the House Gardenia. She’d stayed there long enough to be able to walkwithout feeling like she was going to pass out, and then she’d disappeared.
There was only so much of the newly protective Beatriz she could handle. It was downright unsettling to witness. Besides, how was she supposed to carry out any of her plans with Beatriz trying to swaddle her like a babe in a crib?
As much as she jested about going back to her apartment, she knew it wasn’t a viable option. The prince had proven himself to be not only untrustworthy but a wild card. It was best to stay out of sight and out of mind for the time being. And that left her here with her murderous and secret-laden mentor. It really was more pleasant hiding out at Gage’s house, though. It was always warm and filled with an obscene amount of food. Excessively cozy for an assassin, really.
Elysia threw her feet down on the floor. Mud fell off in chunks and she winced. “I wanted to see if you were game to spar.”
“No,” he said flatly. “Considering I normally have to drag you out to train, I thought you would have burned yourself out by now. You can’t keep training like this, Elysia. You’re barely healed as it is.”
Undeterred, she bargained. “I swear it looks worse than it is at this point. Just an hour?”
Gage remained unamused and unconvinced. “No. Now go bathe yourself before I decide that Larky boy would make a better dinner than a pet.”
“That’s disgusting.”
“Tell him to stop pissing on my pillows, then.”
Elysia stood begrudgingly, fighting back a laugh at the wet, muddy outline she’d left on the chair.
Both of Gage’s hands landed on the expanse of his desk as he leaned forward. “Bathe, now.”
She’d stepped onto the first stair when he called out, looking back up from his papers. “Dinner is in an hour. We need to talk.”
Elysia dippeddown in the water to just below her chin, her eyes still peeking above the glimmering surface. The bathroom attached to her bedroom was stocked with every salt and oil and scrub one could imagine. Based on the selection lining the small shelf near the tub, it would be easy to assume that a pampered lady resided here instead of a man with more scars than she could count.
It wasn’t vanity that prompted Gage to stock every bathroom with glass canisters of salts and oils, though. It was simple practicality. The salts soothing her strained and overworked muscles were just that—practical.
If Gage looked handsome, it was because it suited the job. If Gage looked rough enough to scare the piss out of you, then it was because it suited the job. Everything had a time and place in his world. Salts to soothe, oils and ointments to protect and repair. He always said his body was both his tool and his home, and he would treat it as such. That an assassin who did not take care of himself was an assassin who was dead.
She’d known him so long that she imagined she was a bit numb to the idea of him killing strangers. Even after all these years, there was still an endless stream of questions she wished she could ask him—like why he’d come to Kava or how his family’s empire functioned. Whenever she approached such topics, he’d just give her an easy smile, evading her questions as skillfully as any courtier.
The truth was, the man could tell her he was a demon and she’d find a way to rationalize it. Because he was the man whohad plucked her out of a blood-soaked festival and kept an eye on her ever since. He’d taught her to punch and throw a dagger, but also how to mend rips in her clothes and how to cook her own breakfast. He’d found her the proper herbs to soothe her cycles and also to keep children at bay. He’d introduced her to people who traded in weapons and poisons, but also to the old lady who sold sweets that rivaled anything Lynd could whip up in her kitchens.
He was a complicated creature, and that was something she could relate to. She had long ago accepted that most people were neither all good nor all bad. She herself kept changing by the day, and wherever she ended up would likely be as murky as the Valvere Sea.
Elysia scooped out a handful of the closest body scrub, sitting up to rub it down the lengths of her arms. The events from what was close to a month ago now still threatened to overtake her psyche in moments like these where she was still and there was no one and nothing to distract her. She’d killed two men in one night, and it hadn’t been magic’s fault.
She sighed, reaching around to her back, barely noticing the grit of the sugar scrub over her thoughts. Her death total climbed higher by the week it seemed, and yet where there should have been her usual self-loathing was only a strange emptiness, as if all of her emotions had slid just out of reach. Below the surface of the water, they darted away anytime she tried to look them in the eye.
Plunging back under, she rinsed off the scrub. The apathetic void she found herself in extended to her own life. The recklessness that drove her beneath the sea hadn’t been beaten out of her, it had only been fortified.
Selfishandignorant. That’s what Mari had called her. Elysia dipped her head back, humming to herself. The words had landed. Because she knew they were true—her sights had alwaysonly been her own survival. Powerless and afraid, she’d never let herself dream of change. But the rebels had.
Nestling back into the tub, she inhaled the dark, woodsy scent she had dripped into the water. The scent of pine stung her heart, reminding her ofhimand making her wish she’d reached for any other bottle. Rippling her fingers through the water, she concluded there were no sane options any longer.
She was going to walk downstairs where Gage would once again peddle out his standing offer to smuggle her anywhere but here. Maybe it’d work, maybe it wouldn’t. Her father’s relationship with the men who worked the steamships was greased with years of money and the promise of continued work. The chances of convincing an entire crew not to turn her in were slim. Someone always wanted extra coin, and narcing on Elysia Parker would be a sure way to line your pockets.
Deep in her gut, she knew her story was here. The story was not in one of the many lands that boasted of sun and flowers and warmth that healed your bones. Because beyond her apathy was a long wilted desire to live a story worth telling.
The story she needed, the story that was hers, was in the soot-riddled rain and once creamy but now ashen sweeping arches of her favorite buildings. The story was hidden somewhere behind the shining, colorful doors of her city and dead diplomats and princes who hunted magical beings beneath the sea.
Elysia stood, water dripping, allowing all the dead and dirt to fall away. Wrapping herself in a towel, her bare feet slapped against the floor. No matter how Beatriz or Gage cajoled or threatened, it was her choice to make, and she was staying. If she was grateful to her parents for anything, it was teaching her not to bend to the whims of others, no matter how loudly they shouted or quietly they begged. Parkers crafted their own aimsin their own time for their own ends. And it was damn time she did so for herself.
It had been almost a month, and she had waited long enough. Gage and Beatriz would have to accept her decision whether they liked it or not.
Elysia slipped into a shimmering blue velvet dress that slid over her like a cascading river. Soft dark boots and a black as night cloak. She shoved a scrap of lace into her pocket with a few pins and walked slowly back down the stairs into the kitchen.
