“No.” Her mouth flattened. “But there are no healers here, and you could die of infection. I’ll hate you forever if you do that.”
His smile grew bigger. “I’ll try not to.”
“Don’t try.Do.Mind over matter, remember?”
He nodded faintly. “I’ll let my back know.”
She rolled her eyes at him. “Did anyone ask about your scars? Or those bruises? Or the scrapes on your back?”
“Dex and Silas did. Eryx was too busy throwing his weight around and making sure everyone knows he’s powerful even without magic.”
Bel’s eyes narrowed, lessening their brightness on the rest of her face. “And?”
“And let’s hope we can trust them because they might have an inkling that we’re not who we say we are.”
Warily, she asked, “How much of an inkling?”
“Enough to want real answers when they come back tomorrow.”
“Carver!” Sparks tried to pop in her wet hair, fizzling instead. “Why?”
“Well, one had a needle poked through my skin and the other was sitting on me,” he growled. “It was hard to come up with good lies.” Shifting, he dangled one arm over the side of the bed. “Gods.” He winced.
“Don’t move, you idiot. If you tear a stitch, I’m going straight to cauterization. And if I see even a hint of infection, I’m burning it out.”
He scowled at her. “You’ll need Silas to hold me down again.”
“Then so be it. And if he tells anyone about us—or my magic—I’ll burn him alive.”
Carver just breathed shallowly again, trying not to move. Bel would threaten Silas if necessary, but she wouldn’t do anything else when their secrets were on the verge of spilling anyway. It seemed inevitable now. “I lost my job today.”
She scooched by his bedside, putting them face-to-face. She was so close that her freckles popped out at him, especially the ones on the bridge of her nose. “I guess that’s the price for buying Cleito a moment of peace with your own skin.” Her eyes shifted to his back, her sympathetic gaze almost the comforting touch Carver knew she wouldn’t give. His eyes dipped to her mouth. Bel’s lips seemed to have gotten all the softness the rest of her didn’t really have, and he wanted to know what they felt like against his mouth.
His eyes flicked back up, finding hers on his face now. “I’m to be executed if Eryx ever sees me again.”
Those lush curves of her lips flattened out. The tension spread to the rest of her face, hardening her jaw and turning her eyes into magic-bright chips of blue-green ice. “It doesn’t matter. We’ll have Cleito soon.”
Carver grunted his agreement, although stealing Cleito would have to wait for his back to heal. He hated to think what Eryx might put her through in the days to come. The king got more fanatical by the hour, as if he could sense the tide turning in Atlantis.
Bel sat back on her heels. “Did they give you anything for the pain?”
“Dex’s family were Magoi healers before Punishment. He knows a few things about herbs, since that’s all they’ve got now. He tried to give me henbane, but I refused. I chewed some willow bark during the sewing up instead.”
She wrinkled her nose. “Henbane will kill you.”
“Not in the right dose. But I didn’t want to be sedated into a stupor, either. I have news.”
Curiosity made a slight crack in the fury hanging over her like a storm. “News?”
Every throb of his wounds seemed worth the memory of the Chaos Wizard’s whispered words, given to his ears alone. “Cleito told me where the key is.”
Bel pitched forward, her eyes widening. “Where?”
They were almost nose to nose again, so close he could smell her almond cream and the hints of baked cherries perfuming her damp hair. “You know that rock formation up north on the eastern shore, not too far inside magical creature territory? The one we saw and said looked just like Athena’s owl?” Bel nodded, her eyes luminous and huge. “It’s somewhere in the cave below it. Cleito said it’s under the water, not above.”
“Not above…” Sliding back a little, she bit her lip. “So we have to swim for it?”
Carver tried to shrug and failed miserably. Grimacing, he said, “Sounds more like dive.”
