“Were they for wine or for potions?”
“I planned to split them fifty-fifty.” She set down the plates that would be our first course. I could already smell something delicious and hearty cooking in the cauldron hanging in the kitchen hearth. “Well, is it true?” she asked.
“That he’s handsome? I suppose so.”
“I knowthat.”
“How?” I asked, laughing even as my heart stung.
“When someone asked Dean Andaren whether your pirate was really as good looking as everyone was saying, he told them he was ‘fine looking enough for a non-fae man, if you like the unshaven, unwashed types.’ High praise from him. And, evidently, no one minds the unwashed and unshaven bit.”
I wrestled with what to say—with what toadmitto my mentor. She wasn’t here to counsel me in matters of the heart. Yet in my lowest moments, I’d always called on her. She was one of the few people in this world who understood the burden of chaos magic—and of being a balancer.
“He’s notmypirate,“ I said, sounding more glum than I’d meant to.
She merely tisked. “You married him, did you not?”
“Under a siren’s thrall.” I sighed. “And then I agreed to stay and help him. And then I danced with him, and fought beside him. Foughtwith him,too. And then I suppose I fell in love. What a foolish thing to do.”
Master Aynia took the seat across from me, her round face all sympathy. “Not just any man would try to win the heart of a balancer.”
“To be honest, I don’t think he even had to try that hard.” I pressed my hands to both my reddening cheeks. “What’s wrong with me? I was like a silly school girl. He just kept getting under my skin, and before I knew it he was getting into my heart, too. I don’t even know how.”
She shook out her napkin, placing it over her lap. “I’m sure you do know.”
I pressed even harder into my cheeks, as if I could will my embarrassment and heartache away. “I have an educated guess.”
“And?”
“Well, I tried to think of what you would say to me, if you were there to guide me.”
“And?” she pressed again.
“You would ask me why I was letting him get under my skin. A pirate, a rogue, a man who kidnapped me and forced me into marriage, and yet I couldn’t get him out of my head.”
Master Aynia patted my hand sympathetically. “And what was the answer?”
I sniffed. “He reminded me of home.”
The thin inked-on lines of Master Aynia’s brows arched in surprise. “Of Aegle?”
“Ye—no. Not exactly. Of the life I wanted when I lived there, before Master Frida discovered me.”
Aynia’s smile was full of gentle kindness. “Perhaps we should have something a little stronger for this discussion. Wine pairs well with matters of the heart, I think.”
I nodded, happy for the cozy warmth of my mentor’s rooms and these little bits of sophistication I had missed while aboardCarabosse.Master Aynia had a wonderful palate and alwaysselected the perfect wine pairing—a delicate gift that would surprise those who only knew her as a master of curses.
I waited in comfortable silence while my mentor uncorked a bottle of Laufeean white, picking at the soft bread and aged cheese on my plate beside the skewers. The food was fresh and good, full of the tastes of my true home here at the Academy. But somehow it didn’t satisfy, even when I tasted it with the surprise golden cherry and peach notes of the pale gold wine.
Everything was perfect. I was home. Safe. The wicked pirate Bluebeard had been thoroughly foiled. Yet everything felt so wrong.
“Tell me,” Master Aynia said, taking her seat across from me.
And so I told her. Told her how the ships ofCarabossecould’ve been longboats launching from harbor, how that surprisingly eloquent, brutish man could’ve been a clever-tongued Aeglean, our people being known for their sharp wit. How it felt like in another life, with the details rearranged just a bit, it could’ve been everything I’d ever dreamed of as a girl: A mate who was my equal, someone to start a family with, someone to share a life with, split between the sea and the rocky land. How those nights sharing the captain’s cabin could’ve been around a fire in an Aeglean house, warm inside and cold outside.
As I spoke, I realized that the parts of Dewspell I loved were the ones that reminded me of my first home. And I realized that the parts of my unwitting adventure with Jax that I’d loved reminded me of that, too.
I also told her how I had fallen for him. Loved him, even, despite everything. And how he would not or could not choose me over his precious treasure.
