Actually, she wasn’t even that. She and Carver weren’t married. Her first day on the job, Spiro had said her husband needed to collect her wages, and she’d stupidly agreed. She’d later understood that it could’ve been a brother or a father—not that Carver could pass for her father—but she’d been so shocked by the idea that she couldn’t collect her own pay that she’d gone along with the husband idea, her mind too filled with indignation to come up with anything else.
When Carver found out, he just raised his soot-black eyebrows and started taking every opportunity to remind her of how they were stuck with each other more than ever now.
Despite the bizarre spark of joy her idiotic mistake seemedto bring out in Carver, being fake married actually worked out for the best. She could help Theophania on the patio, gather at least some gossip, and make a decent wage.
It turned out that earning her own way brought out a bizarre spark of joy inher. Every coin or jewel of her past had felt like carrying the bones or teeth of a noble who’d displeased her parents or the looted treasures of someone else’s home. She touched her chest, still somehow feeling the weight of the solid-gold necklace her mother had slipped over her head after a bout of violence, the metal still warm from its previous owner’s body heat. Mommy Dearest had forced her to wear the dead woman’s jewels for weeks as a reminder that Tarvan royals did as they pleased.
Bellanca stiffened at the memory. She had a thousand others just like it, many worse. At least she knew what kind of ruler shedidn’twant to be. She’d never actually ruled anything, though, and the idea was more daunting than she cared to admit.
On the bright side, she couldn’t do worse than Eryx. According to Carver, he spent his days terrorizing his servants, disregarding his advisors, and pitting his courtiers against one another until he got into his golden chariot every evening and dragged an innocent woman to her death. He wanted his magic back—magic he’d never had in his life but knew ran in his family’s bloodline—and it was all he cared about.
It was the same obsession that drove him to keep a horrifically tight leash on his oracle, Cleito. The royal seer had made several accurate predictions over the years, even with the lack of magic in Atlantis, which meant Eryx focused most of his brutality on trying to beat information out of her. He understood as well as they did that if anyone knew the secret to reviving magic in Atlantis, it was someone with the gift of prophecy. Bellanca and Carver wanted the same answers, which was why Carver needed access to the throne room.
“Be a Nereid and take this to the table by the bougainvillea,” Theophania murmured as she hurried past Bellanca and put a plate of thinly sliced lemon and fresh rosemary sprigs into her hands.
Bellanca added a little clay pot of dried sea salt and took everything to the customers. On her way back, no one asked for anything, so she slipped behind the counter with Lilika and Dimitri while she had the chance.
“Ooh, baklava.” Starving, she took a piece.
“Have two.” Lilika put another triangle on a plate for her before Spiro could holler from his cushions for more and deprive them all of one of the only things that wasn’t fish around here.
“You should have some, too,” Bellanca said between mouthfuls. “You both should.”
“We did.” Dimitri tossed a very handsome smile over his shoulder. It was mainly handsome because he was one of the few men she could tolerate on this island and his sea-blue eyes were only for Lilika. “Two each, actually, and now we have to make more or suffer the consequences.” He winked at his kitchen mate.
Lilika blushed redder than the sunset when her naturally tanned skin was already pink and glistening from the cooking heat. “Father’s all bluster,” she said shyly.
Spiro was definitely a windbag. Sometimes Bellanca wanted to poke him and see if he deflated. “I’ll help,” she offered, reaching for a tray of walnuts to crush.
“Just eat your breakfast.” Lilika pushed Bellanca toward a stool and filled a glass with honey-sweetened apricot juice for her. “You’re going to be running your feet off all day here and then have to work at home, too.”
Bellanca didn’t correct her. She figured it was safest to let everyone believe she and Carver did things the Atlantianway—the men of the house sitting back with their feet up while the women worked and worried themselves into early graves. Dimitri seemed more enlightened, which boded well for her telling her friends the truth as soon as she could and was also why she approved of this funny little courtship she saw developing day by day.
“Yeah, Carver. He’s a pain in my backside,” she said around her baklava. “Never a moment of peace.”
Honestly, that wasn’t such a falsehood.
“It could be worse. At least he’s handsome.” A bright smile on her round face, Lilika started filleting fish like the expert she was. Bellanca had butchered two whitish-pink things early on and was asked not to touch the knives again. “And virile, from the looks of him.”
Bellanca nearly choked on her breakfast. “Hmmm, virile,” she mumbled, Carver’s hard, muscled chest flashing in her mind again, those sliding beads of water glistening in the morning sun.
Coughing a little, she wiped crumbs from her lip. Appreciating a good-looking man wasn’t the same thing as wanting to be definitively bound to one—especially one who was durably hung up on someone else.
She took another bite. It was a good thing the ring was false, and she didn’t have to worry about it. They already had a relationship, and she liked it the way it was, no matter how much they fought.
“Don’t worry. I’m sure Hera will bless you with children soon.” Lilika’s knife still flawlessly sliced as if it had a mind of its own. Her full hips swayed, and her soft stomach pressed against the counter as she worked. Grinning at Bellanca, she added, “And they’ll be adorable—just like you.”
Bellanca hoped her return smile didn’t look as false and forced as it felt. No one in her entire life hadeverthought shewas adorable. And making babies with Carver? Something in her gut yanked tight. That wasn’t part of any plan. For the gods’ sakes, they were more likely to kill each other than to reproduce.
“My older sister didn’t have her first baby until she’d been married for three years.” Dimitri glanced over his shoulder at her, his face half lost in a cloud of pan-seared-fish smoke. “You and Carver only wed before moving to the city. You have plenty of time.”
That was the story they’d told. They’d left Atlantian farm country for the big city and now, here they were.
She wrinkled her nose, and not only because of the kitchen smells. First, she’d make a terrible parent and couldn’t even imagine motherhood. Second, she was pretty sure they all knew that marriage wasn’t actually a requirement for producing children, but she knew better than to shock her friends. Still, she couldn’t help bringing up the Atlantian issue that troubled her far more than everyone automatically assuming she lived to pop out Carver’s kids. “Doesn’t it seem strange to you that women are passed from fathers or brothers to husbands? You’re always a daughter, a sister, or a wife. Why can’t you just be yourself?”
“Some say it was different—before Punishment.” Dimitri shrugged.
Punishment.Bellanca pursed her lips. It wasn’t just a word here. It wasan event. “But who decided that women were lesser people all of a sudden after Punishment? Why did they get to choose?” And why didn’t anyone fight back?
