I sighed. The night was already full of regrets. What was one more?
Chapter 22
Marc guided me up and down the streets, meandering through rickety cottages and towering mansions. Trading houses, bars, brothels, and administrative buildings mingled together, sometimes all on the same block. Random lights spilled out of windows and onto the street, flickering over us like campfires. Laughter came from the brightly lit windows, and shadows slipped in and out of the frames like a play being performed.
And out there in the dark, I felt a little isolated. My melancholia only worsened when a man struck up a song. He sang in a sweet tenor, hitting the high notes with confidence.
Just like Tim.
I pressed a balled hand over my heart as I thought about my dearest brother. Only a few weeks. That’s how long we’d been separated. Yet it felt like a lifetime. I’d have a lot more lifetimes to live without him, especially if I drank some vampire blood again.
“You have that look on you again.”
Marc’s voice snapped me out of my gloom, and I looked up to find him staring down at me with that bright blue eye. I blinked at him. “What look?”
“The look of someone who’s lost something dear to them. It’s written all over your face.”
I cupped my cheeks in my hand and rubbed them thoroughly. “You don’t happen to know where I can find a face eraser, do you?”
His smile faltered a little, and a strangely haunting look slipped into his eye as he stared ahead of us. “Not one that wouldn’t mar the rest of it.”
His melancholia caught my attention. “Did I say something wrong?”
A bittersweet smile slipped onto his lips. “Nothing you shouldn’t have, seeing as you don’t have my memories.”
A horrible thought crept into my mind. “You’ve seen someone become horribly disfigured, haven’t you?”
“I’ve seen a lot of things,” he mused as we continued down the glowing streets toward the gentle slope that aimed toward the port. “That happens when you sail the world.”
“But does it get any easier seeing them?” I wondered as I tried to catch his eye. “Or does it just get buried?”
“Buried like a floundering ship in a storm.”
I bowed my head and bit my lower lip. “That can’t be easy.”
“It’s life,” he countered in a steady, though soft voice. “You see enough of it, and you get to seeing the worst of it. Otherwise, you can’t say you’ve lived.” He cast his bright eye on me. “Can you say you’ve lived?”
My unfocused eyes stared at the ground as I thought back to all the complaints I’d had. The slow work day. The short weekends. The horrid bosses. They all seemed so trivial now.
A heavy sigh escaped me. “No, I don’t think I have.”
He wrapped my hand in his and tugged on it. I looked up to find him grinning down at me. “Maybe that’s why the gods brought you here. You need to live a little.”
A stifled snort escaped me. “Does that always have to involve strange people and potential kidnappings?”
“Those are the ones you’ll have with me,” he revealed as he drew us down a narrow cobblestone path.
The houses stood close to one another, with the ones on our left at a higher plateau than the ones on the right. A few stone steps led down to a cul-de-sac, and a well stood in the middle. A tree grew nearby, shading the opening and anyone who had to work the crank to gather water.
And then there was the balcony. The houses lower down parted, and a half circle of ground stretched out of the courtyard on our right. A tall railing lined the very end, and a lively vine with purple flowers wound its way through the upright posts.
“But we can have a few of these moments, too,” Marc mused as he guided me to the railing.
My mouth fell open as every step revealed the magnificent view ahead of us. The city stretched out below, dotted with soft flickering candles and gaslight. Chimneys puffed away, sending soot and the scent of a late dinner to the wind. The winding streets looked like canyons etched into the hillside, and the glistening waters of the way stood far below, reflecting the starry sky above our heads.
I draped my arms over the railing and took in the view. “Wow.”
“I’m glad you like it,” Marc commented as he joined me at the railing. His bright eye admired the prospect with the same veneration. “There aren’t that many prospects better than this one, and they’re not around here.”
