“Oh.” I slouched in relief. “Oh. Okay!”
“Which reminds me.” The sorcerer’s smile was as sinister as any I’d seen in my short but fraught life. Behind my back, my hands returned to the door handle. “Do you remember when I brought you along, as a vulture, to the exchange with Chancellor Noor?”
How could I forget? Our first act as a unified team! “Of course,” I said, beaming. This change in direction brought confidence and so, abandoning the door, I made my way to the bed and sat. A faint indentation remained from Hydna’s crushing mass.
Rolling the wand between his fingers, Merulo regarded me. “You do know that it was with the intention of humiliating you, yes? A shining Knight of Order, made into an ugly pet.”
“Uh . . .” I eyed the door again. “When you said hurting, did you mean physically or emotionally?”
“Physically.”
“Well then, let’s skip to that part,” I said, getting into it again despite my wounded feelings.
“You’ve proved remarkably immune to shame, then and always. My point is, now that I have my strength restored”—here Merulo brandished his steel and wood arm, curling the artificial fingers—“I can work to find some position that will shame you, some degree of pain or restraint. It will be quite fun, I think.” His single eye held a feverish glint.
We really were a matched set of freaks.
“That’s only if,” I said, shrugging off my shirt, “you can take a minute off from killing God.”
“I can take a minute.”
CHAPTER 46
In Which Glenda Just Wants to Get to the Blissful Culmination of Stabbing Cameron through the Throat Again, but In Which She Is Worried About What All This Time Alone with the Mongrel Witch Is Doing to Her, as She Has on a Couple of Occasions Now Felt an Odd Stirring that Should Only Be Brought About by Tall and Refined Elven Men, and Certainly Not by a Woman, and Certainly Not by a Woman Like This, and What Is That Damn Witch Doing Now, What Is She Doing.
Domitia was throwing headless fish into the sea.
Glenda sat on the cold beach, watching. “Could you please explain,” she called between splashes, “why this is necessary?”
Domitia held up a hand in a request for—what? Silence? Obedience? Glenda gnashed her teeth, but nevertheless complied. She dug her heels into the sand in lieu of the morecolourfulactions that occupied her daydreams.
They’d followed the glowing dog for many days in the rolling carriage, stopping in villages and sometimes even at farmhouses to sleep and restock on supplies. The gloweventually led them to the edge of a cliff where, spreading its wings, the carriage had leaped, causing Glenda to shriek in fear and surprise. Circling above a section of featureless water, the worn toy glowed like a meteor—but the carriage lacked any aquatic abilities, leaving them to idle on this beach with a stack of hastily purchased and slowly rotting cod.
Despite her complex feelings toward the woman, Glenda could admire the strength with which Domitia threw the fish. They landed a considerable distance away in eruptions of white foam.
Most likely, the stink of fish now polluted those rounded arms and wide hands. Glendacertainlywould not allow any contact that might transfer those pollutants. And shecertainlywasn’t picturing it. She’d been careful, since that festival night, to keep herself at arm’s length from the witch. Domitia, with a creasing of her brow, seemed to understand the elf’s dodging skittishness, and maintained her own distance accordingly.
“And now here she is, wasting time,” Glenda muttered as she stacked sand in a heap across her feet. Thus absorbed, the witch’s yell of triumph startled her. She looked up to see a dark form passing beneath the turquoise waves.
Domitia was unperturbed, raising her scarred arms in welcome. “Hello, sweetheart,” she called to the monstrous head that breached the water’s surface. “Will you be my eyes? I have plenty of fish to share!”
The creature wove closer, grinning with needle-point teeth, until—with a sharp decline in grace—it hit sand and began to waddle. Without the water’s support, the leviathan’s ribboned fins looked like snagged mounds of seaweed.
The monster dwarfed even her mass considerably, but Domitia approached it without fear. She tossed a fish up to be caught with a snap, speaking softly all the while.
With a pat on its dripping snout, it was done. The beast was hers. Domitia tugged the glowing toy out of an expansive side-pocket and held it up to the leviathan. “Gently,” she ordered.
The monster took the dog between its teeth with the same delicacy it might use for its eggs. Lit by the toy’s radiance, its scales sparkled like gems.
“We are going to kill Sir Cameron,” Glenda called, knowing that Passionweed fueled her temper, but unable to control herself. “So it doesn’t matter whether that toy gets chewed to bits. He’ll never see it. Unless you’ve changed your mind about whose side you’re on?”
“I am on the side,” Domitia said darkly, “of whatever will prove best for the largest number of people. This is not a quest for vengeance.”
Not for you, thought Glenda. She bit back further comments, knowing the witch would only respond with more stubbornness and self-adulation. Domitia might pass as an elf, but she had the temperament of a storybook dragon.
The sea monster galumphed its way back along the surf until both its carriage-sized torso and the long, serpentine length of its neck had disappeared into the waves. With a soft plop, its head sank, and it vanished. The witch stood there in silence, water lapping about her ankles, and her eyes rolling white. It didn’t take long for Glenda to break. “Care to share what you’re seeing?”
“Nothing, presently. The leviathan is diving, following the glow. Getting distracted by fishes—naughty! Come on,sweetheart, let’s stay on track.” She paused, the cries of seabirds a distant chorus, then: “I see it. Incredible. They have an entire city hidden in the depths. Brightly lit—and so many buildings! I can’t imagine the magic it must take to keep the water at bay. Oh, she can’t go any further.” The witch smiled ruefully. “I’m detaching now, to enter the city with my own consciousness. It will be tricky. Easy to rebuff if I’m detected, which I fully expect to be. Please grant me silence. Once I find Sir Cameron or the sorcerer, I will open a two-way call so that we may speak and confirm their identities.”
