“You said that already.”
“You didn’t listen.”
“What makes you think I’ll start now?” I shoot him a wry grin that he sheepishly returns.
Mastering himself quickly, he furrows his dark brows, eyes intensely focused once more. “Don’t get near enough for him to touch you. Don’t be bated by anything he says. He will try to rile you, to pit us against each other. It’s to weaken us.”
His eyes run down the length of my body and a hot wave rolls down my spine. “And put your hair up!” he barks as an irritated afterthought. “I know in books heroines are always running around with their hair blowing in the wind, but it’s ridiculously dangerous. It could get in your line of vision at a pivotal moment, or the enemy can grab it—"
“Anrai,” I interrupt softly, and he stops short, his eyes softening as they take in my face. “I know,”I say, sweeping my hair up into a messy bun. “You’ve prepared me well. The assassin is tied up and you’re going to be with me the entire time.”
A muscle in his jaw twitches and he looks as if he wants to argue. Instead, he says, “Do you have your dagger?”
I pat the leather sheath that is now almost always attached to my thigh. I’ve learned the wisdom of being armed at all times in Ferusa. It only took almost dying numerous times.
Anrai nods approvingly but keeps his body solidly in front of the door. “I don’t know why I can’t just go question him alone,” he says grudgingly, folding his arms over his chest. Though he’s changed from the stuffy clothes he wore to meet Evie and is now clad in the supple leather of his everyday gear, his hair is still unnaturally neat. Something, I’m sure, that had to do with Calloway. “I’ll be brutal and efficient, and we can move on.”
“I need to see his face,” I repeat what we’ve already talked about, but he nods as if he needs to hear it again. “My power is telling me I need to, maybe because it’s still in him?” Shaw frowns, as if he doesn’t like the idea of anything of mine being in the assassin, but I press on. “I feel a connection and I need to talk to him. I can’t explain it more than that.”
He nods, lifting his hand as if to caress my face, but seems to think better of it and stops halfway. We both stare at his hand, the air suddenly taut with the promise of his touch. My body awakens at the mere whisper of it. Our interactions since this morning have been honest and shy, if limited and perfunctory. There are more pressing matters than what happened between us, but that hasn’t stopped my mind from wandering back there. Repeatedly.
Shaw tucks his hand into his pocket and steps aside with a flourishing bow. “After you, my lady,” he says grimly.
I take a deep breath and push through the door.
The assassin is housed on the second floor of the manor in a bedroom similar to mine, except that this one has been stripped of everything but a chamber pot. He springs to his feet nimbly and presses his back to the far wall, his wary eyes locking on me. Color has returned to his skin and my chest relaxes at the visible confirmation that I haven’t killed him.
Something sparkles under my skin when I meet his dark eyes as my power recognizes someone it’s touched. It begins to trickle inside me like a cool forest spring.
The assassin’s hands are bound together with thick coils of rope, in the same manner Shaw bound mine when we first met. Distaste threads through me as the aforementioned scoundrel slinks into the room after me, closing the door with a softsnick.This room is no better than an animal’s kennel. Or worse, the cage I rescued Asa from.
Emotion rises in my throat. “Shaw, how could you not even give him a proper bed?”
“Are you going to show kindness to everyone who tries to kill you?” He replies sardonically. He doesn’t look at me, his pale eyes entirely focused on the man in front of him. There is nothing of Anrai—it is only Shaw now, hard and unyielding. “Tell us, assassin, what would you do with a proper bed?”
The assassin tilts his head as he considers the question. “I suppose it depends on what sort of bed.” His voice is deep but rough, most likely an aftereffect of being drowned. His eyes glint in the dim light of the room and his muscles are tightly coiled, as if prepared to fight his way through us at any moment, tied hands be damned.
Shaw grins arrogantly. “Humor her.”
The man shrugs. “Take the metal or nails and form it into a weapon. Sharpen the wood into stakes. Take the thread from the sheets and fashion them into a garrote,” he bares his teeth in a humorless grin, “Or maybe I’d simply get a decent night’s sleep.”
“What’s your name?” I ask him.
His eyes rove over me and I determine that they aren’t black at all, but a deep shade of brown. His hair has grown in more fully so that his skull no longer gleams through it and though his face is dirty, his skin is smooth and youthful. A large scar runs from his left eyebrow to his ear, as if someone attempted to slice out his eye.
Every scar tells a story.Is every story one of pain?
“That power of yours will be more successful than your kindness if you wish me to talk,” the assassin replies, his eyes flicking between Shaw and me. His voice is calm, but fear wavers beneath it.
Of me.
“I have no wish to hurt you,” I tell him honestly, taking a step toward him. He presses himself further into the wall and his eyes scan the room restlessly, as if there will be some weapon he’s missed. A harsh breeze roars through the window, the pane flinging open and bouncing off the wall with a loud rattle.
“That makes one of us,” Shaw growls from behind me. Emotionless brown eyes flick to him. The assassin has seen as much as Shaw has to be able to bear witness to what burns in Shaw’s eyes and not rear back. He is comfortable in cruelty and in its familiarity, there are no surprises.
It is my power that chills him. The unknown is always more frightening than the explored places, even if those places were dark and brutal.
Soothe him.
