It seems like I can’t formulate a full sentence yet, but Kit understands me well enough. He wraps an arm around me, tucking me against his warm body and handing me a canteen of cool water to drink. I gulp it down eagerly and he graciously ignores me spilling it down my front before I pass it back to him.
“It seems like Jack borrowed the gryphon to take you back to the ship a few days ago?” At my nod, he continues with a slight smirk, “Well, it seems he never returned it. The others headed back to the ship, but after I broke the curse onboard, it was decided that we should take some space for a few days. I thought we could head back to the shop. Then, once you’re recovered, you can decide what you want to do next.”
My mind goes completely blank. I’d only got as far as finding Kit and Noush and getting them both back. Kit’s still smiling and he’s being very gentle with me, like I’m a porcelain doll.
Most of the time, I wouldn’t appreciate it. But right now, while my head feels fit to split in two, I’m appreciating the delicate handling.
I rub my throat and swallow hard. “I remember her cutting off our airways. What happened after that?”
“Finch happened.” Kit chuckles, and I shift so that my front presses up against his side and I can feel the vibrations through mychest. “Aster managed to shut down whatever spell she was using to suffocate us before we all passed out. By that point, Finch and Torin had fully lost control of themselves. Finch isn’t particularly attuned to his other form, and it sounds like the others had decided Torin should be the one to keep him in line.” He clears his throat, running his hand up and down my arm like he can’t stop himself from touching me. I press even closer, feeling the same need to have his body close to me.
“Torin didn’t react very well to—” Kit taps his forearm and the spot where the mate mark used to be etched into his skin. My gut sours as I’m faced with the patch of bare skin.
And then the words sink in. I was with Aster, so I knew what was happening, and that was bad enough. But for Torin, it must have been like...
“He thought I was dead?”
Kit nods, pressing a kiss to the top of my head. “Together, he and Finch tore down the entire town to get to you. All the labs, every building in Deadwood Cove, they’re all rubble now.”
“Oh.”
“Araminta Stone’s jars of magic all got destroyed too.”
I suck in a deep breath, not sure I want to know the answer even as I voice my next question. “Wh-what happened to her?”
I feel him shaking his head before resting it against mine. “We don’t know. Couldn’t find her among the rubble, but we didn’t exactly look too hard to find her.”
“I still don’t understand what it was all for.”
What she did to Aster. Dragging Kit around only to wind up in the cursed labs of Deadwood Cove. Getting pretty damn close to murdering the three of us.
He lets out a weary sigh, tugging on one of my blankets so that it’s enveloping him too, and then wrapping his arm more firmly around me. “She talked a lot about it. Sometimes she seemed to betrying to persuade me to understand, and at other times, she just seemed to like the sound of her own voice. She kept saying she was going to be a businesswoman, renowned around the kingdom.” Kit shifts slightly, readjusting our bodies so that his hand is rubbing small circles on my thigh. “That was why she needed me; the famed cursebreaker from Port Yarrow. She’d decided that I was going with her and I was going to make her a perfect hidey-hole for her stash of stolen magic.”
“We’d thought as much,” I tell him. I shift in my seat again, pulling the blankets closer since it really is cold as shit up here.
Then I spot the broken wooden box on Kit’s other side and pounce on it, pulling it into my lap.
My skin is sitting inside, looking like nothing more than a bundle of thick, grey material. I stroke my hand over it, but it feels odd.
“Reva, I—” When I glance up at him, Kit’s face is drawn and serious, and I have no doubt I don’t want to hear what he has to say next. “I didn’t really want to do this here, but you deserve to know.” He takes a deep breath. “I didn’t go with Araminta willingly. And I wish I’d left Noush at home, safely under the bed like I should have.”
I try to swallow the lump in my throat before I can speak. “Aster said that the sorceress can make people do things they wouldn’t otherwise.”
He nods, rubbing his brow with a heavy sigh. “That makes sense. I... I remember her tapping on my window and the next thing I knew, I was falling out of it.” He swallows hard. “I also vaguely remember opening the box for her at one point, but when I came back to myself I couldn’t be sure it wasn’t a dream.”
“I felt someone touching my skin,” I say. “Could feel someone’s hands all over it right after she took you.” Staring down at the limp material in my lap, I stroke my hand over it again and again like I can coax some life back into it.
“I can’t feel Noush at all.”
Kit lets out a low grumble that would be more familiar coming from Torin than him. He then carefully shifts my skin from my lap before shoving the rest of the blankets off us and scooping me into his lap. He doesn’t speak again as he rearranges the blankets around me, with my sealskin right on top. It takes a good couple of minutes before he’s satisfied with how I’m positioned and he buries his face against my chest.
“Jack took a look at your skin while you were unconscious,” he tells me softly. “He thinks that Aster should be able to help you to restore its magic, but they didn’t want to try it without you knowing what was happening. And Aster, er, didn’t think you’d want to be around him right now.” He straightens up, squeezing my leg. “But just say the word and we can turn this gryphon around and go right back to the ship, if that’s what you want.”
Just then, the gryphon starts to descend, and I let out an involuntary yelp as the basket swings more violently. Kit grips the bottom of the basket with one hand, keeping me firmly in his lap.
The wind whistles around my ears as we drop lower and lower, swinging slowly from left to right. And then we’re landing with a bump that feels like an ice pick in my brain.
We both scramble to our feet, peering over the side of the basket to Port Yarrow town square.
