“Please, thank them for me. The merchant ship as well as your own crew.”
He nodded and eyed the still-steaming copper tub. “Are you done with your bath?”
“Yes.”
“Then why don’t you try the dress on, in case it needs alteration, while I take care of the bathwater.” He gestured to a screened alcove in the corner of the cabin.
Gabriella picked up the simple blue gown and headed for the alcove. As she dressed behind the screen, she could hear Dilys moving around in the cabin. A month ago, she would never have changed clothes with Dilys in the same room, no matter how many screens stood between them, but there was something about being chained naked to a bed and subjected to countless indignities for days on end that had stripped away every last vestige of virginal modesty.
She pulled off the damp sheet, flung it over the top of the screen, and dropped the gown over her head, not surprised to find it a perfect fit. The gown had a modest scooped neckline and full skirts. She laced up the bodice and exited the alcove in time to see Dilys drawing the bathwater out of the tub and sending it out the window with a wave of his hand.
“That’s a convenient trick,” Gabriella noted. She rubbed one of the sheets over her hair until her curls were damp dry.
“Tey.There are a thousand and one practical uses for my gifts. That is number two-hundred thirty-three. The tub, I’ll have to physically carry out.” He smiled a little.
She didn’t smile back. Turning away, she picked up the hairbrush Dilys had left out for her, and sat down at his mirrored dressing table to begin pulling the brush through the wet tangles of her hair.
“Gabriella...” Dilys watched her in the mirror with eyes as careful as his tone. “Are you angry at me?”
The hand pulling the brush through her hair went still. The question honestly shocked her. “Why would I be angry at you?”
“Because I should have been there to stop them from taking you and your sisters.”
“Dilys, I was taken from my bedroom at Konumarr Palace. If I was going to be angry at anyone for allowing that to happen, I’d be angry at the palace guards. Or Wynter, for that matter, since he’s the king and was in the city at the time. But I’m not. It wasn’t their fault. It certainly wasn’t yours.”
“You’ve been acting strangely since we boarded theKracken.”
She laughed a little without humor. “Have I? I suppose I have.” She winced as the brush caught on a tangle in her hair. Grabbing a chunk of hair above the tangle, she started to attack it with the brush, but Dilys made a sound of protest and took a step towards her.
She froze. Completely.
Dilys froze, too. His hands came up, palms open and facing her. “I was just going to offer to brush out that tangle before you rip out half your hair.”
She watched him warily, trying to still the rapid beat of her heart. “I’m sorry. I’m still a little jumpy.”
“Don’t apologize. Not to me. Not to anyone. I just wish I could have found you sooner... could have been there to stop it in the first place.”
“I know. I just... I don’t want to be touched right now.”
“Gabriella, the people who took you, did they—”
“The Shark and Mur Balat,” she interrupted. “That’s who took me. Mur Balat is a slaver—”
“I know who Mur Balat is.” His voice had gone hard, cold, his body stiff. “I suspected the Shark was involved. I even suspected Balat and the Shark had a mutual understanding not to interfere in each other’s enterprises. But I didn’t think the two of them were working together, and I definitely didn’t think Balat would be stupid enough to declare war on Calberna and the Winter King.”
“I don’t think Mur Balat meant you to know he was involved, but I don’t think he was concerned about the possibility either. If you or Wynter came after him with magic, you’d lose.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean I tried to use my magic against him, and it was a mistake. It was almost as if he... absorbed it somehow... then he made a collar that prevented me from using my gifts at all.”
Dilys gripped the solid wood support beam that rose from the center of cabin. “Balat is a magic eater?”
“I’m vaguely familiar with that term, but he did say something about liking the taste of my magic. Is that what he was doing? Literally eating my magic? Like it was food for him?”
“It depends on the type of magic eater he is. That certainly helps explain how he managed to take control of the Trinipor Coast without an outright war. I always thought it was the witches he keeps in his employ who were his real secret weapon.”
“Did you know that the Shark is a Calbernan?” She watched him closely, saw the way his battle claws sank into the wooden post.
