The boy rolled out of the way as they both tumbled toward the deck, and Isahn crashed onto the planks, grateful, for a fraction of a second, that he had avoided crushing a child. His tailbone hit wood, sending a jolt of pain up his spine. Concern reached for him, but never found purchase. His head thunked back against the planks, and the most curious sensation of seeing everything and nothing, all at the same time, washed over him.
twenty-four
George goes to town.
“Whathappenedwiththethree of you?” George asked Hildy as theiractuarianeared Nowosmont’s docks.
“Dunstan dumped me, permanently.” She didn’t sound sad.
“Permanently, permanently? Or ‘permanently’?”
“The former. It’s fine though, Burke uh...”
“Played legionary and saved the day?”
“That’s nicer phrasing than I was going to use. Yes, pretty much.”
George chuckled. It seemed her conversation with Dunstan actually made a difference.Astonishing. “How have things been with Burke?”
“Fine. He’s not as anxious this time around. Guess he also believes Dunstan’s done with me. Makes him less unbearable. You know?”
“Hil, you shouldn’t be with someone who feels unbearable.”
Hildy shrugged.
When George looked past her dear friend to the looming docks beyond, she spotted the subject of their conversation standing in the sun with his hand shielding his eyes. She furrowed her brow, prompting Hildy to take a look.
“Unbearable. See what I mean?” Hildy said with a huff. “He knows I hate that sort of thing.”
“Is he actually there to greet you?”
“Oh.”
“Then...” They were supposed to meet up at Villa Senone. Her pulse catapulted, tangible in the tips of her fingers and toes.
She fidgeted, and Hildy noticed her change in demeanor. “Georgie, breathe. We’ll be there in a minute. We’ll talk to Burke. He was probably by the water already and saw our boat coming in.”
“Why wouldn’t he be at the villa? The whole point of arriving in shifts was to avoid suspicion.”
Hildy didn’t have an answer for her.
“Whyareyouhere?”George barked.
Burke’s greaves glimmered beneath the late-morning sun, giving him metallic legs from the knee down. There was no sign of his usual grin as the women approached. “We need to talk,” he said quietly. “This way.”
They followed him down a narrow, shadowy alley that stank of fish guts.
“Honestly, here?” Hildy snarked.
When he made no comment, only pushed out the soft scent of clean sea air, George saw spots. He was acting far too out of character. Something had gone horribly wrong.
“Something happened,” he said.
She knew it.
“Spit it out. We’re as suspicious as the fates on a fine day right now.”
They learned the awful truth. Gianis and Marinos, using Gianis’s vision magic, glamored themselves as a mother and son aboard the morning ferry. They’d attacked when Wynnie and Dunstan couldn’t retaliate without revealing they were illegally transporting Isahn.
