Carver gave her an arch look, sure she was doing it on purpose. Wiping his face, he said, “You eat louder than a dragon crunching on human bones.”
White teeth flashed as she ripped into her bread. Around another big mouthful, she garbled out, “Did you know that dragons don’t actually like human meat? They say it tastes like poor choices and complaints.”
“And you’ve had how many conversations with dragons?”
She shrugged. “Enough.”
Carver’s lips twitched. “I’ll put that on your gravestone when a dragon eats you.She had one conversation, and it was enough.”
Bel’s worlds-famous glare bored into him from across the table. She had trouble holding her scowl. “Who saysyou’llsurvive?”
“Oh, the dragon won’t want me. I’ll taste like poor choices and complaints.”
She tried not to laugh. She really did. “Lamb stew might be hard to come by in the fish capital of the cosmos, but why don’t you at least grow some vegetables for us?” she suddenly asked. “You’re the farmer here.” She looked around, as if sizing up the living room for a place to dump a cartload of dirt. Knowing her, she would.
Carver reached for a second apricot, wishing he could buy a plot of land and do just that. He’d been a farmer’s son for a lot longer than he’d been a king’s brother, and he’d never forget how to hoe a field or plant a seed, just like he’d never forget how to pick up a sword or run someone through. Right now, he needed to worm his way into Eryx’s throne room and help Beltake Atlantis from that sorry excuse for a king. After, maybe he could opt for a simpler life. Buy a farm. Get some sheep. Then, there might be less tension snapping through him. Less worry. Less…whatever it was that made his chest so tight.
“I’ll buy some seeds,” he told her, his smirk firmly in place. “We’ll see how long it takes for your acid tongue to wilt the blooms.”
Her eyes snapped to his, a shot of magic sizzling through their blue-green depths. “Don’t worry. I keep all my venom for you.”
“Lucky me,” he murmured, the sarcasm he’d meant to inject into his voice getting lost somewhere in his throat.
Bel looked at him suspiciously again. After a silence that felt more awkward by the second, she finally slid her empty breakfast plate aside and picked up her amulet. She held the bronze disk up to the morning light, a little frown forming between her copper-brown brows as she studied the medallion. Carver watched the different expressions flit across her face. Frustration. Irritation. Concern. Her freckles crinkled, then smoothed out.
He looked away. He shouldn’t watch her so carefully. It made him feel…vulnerable.
“Any new thoughts?” She’d know he meant the medallion, the missing jewel, the mission, magic, the gods…all of it.
She made a sound in the negative, shaking her head.
Bel’s focus stayed on the amulet. They were quiet again, but this time the silence turned more companionable than awkward. Carver finished his breakfast in peace, then moved his plate and the fruit dish aside, leaving the table clear between them. Relaxing, he sprawled in his chair and scratched his jaw.
Her gaze flicked up. “That’s annoying.”
He sighed. He should’ve known it wouldn’t last. “What is?”
“That noise your fingers make on your face. Stop it. Or go shave.”
He scratched harder, calluses rasping over stubble. Bel always brought out the best in him.
She raised a brow. “I didn’t realize I was living with a child. Did you just turn five?”
“Idefyyou to find a five-year-old who needs to shave.”
She huffed a reluctant laugh, and damn if he didn’t like that even more than annoying her.
Actually, he liked both.
His hand dropped to his lap. “It’s our day off together. What should we do?”
She held up the amulet, giving it the stink eye now instead of him. “Burn this?”
He chuckled. “As satisfying as that sounds, we’re supposed to repair it, not destroy it.”
“Hmmm. The Shard of Olympus.” She went back to studying the medallion, smoothing her finger over the little engravings on the sides as if trying to read them with her touch.
Carver’s skin tightened. “We could go north.” Anything related to Mount Olympus was more likely to be there than anywhere else.
