A shiver rolled down her spine she prayed he thought was the cold. “Will it be okay?”
“Perhaps. He will require daily attention, but he’s strong.”
“I’d like to be responsible for him.”
Allaster cast her a sideways glance, evaluating, and she met his icy gaze. “Very well. He’s yours. And Corynth?” She held her breath,waiting for the words she needed to hear. “When you’re healed, I’ll grant you your magic.” Then he was gone.
Kasira used the fence to lower herself gently to the ground and rested her forearms on the lowest rung, her chin propped atop them. The cub watched her with a fearful look.
“I didn’t know it would be you,” she told him.
She hadn’t known the cub had been captured. Hadn’t known it would be a Zeras waiting for them. She suspected that was the point. Vera had wanted the ploy to be convincing, and there was no greater symbol of Kalish fear than a Zeras. And oh, had Kasira’s fear been real.
The best cons dealt in expectations. Kasira hadn’t expected a Zeras, and so her performance had been authentic. Allaster hadn’t expected her to risk her life to save a beast, to save him, and so the last of his reservations had faded. He no longer expected her to be his enemy.
Which was why he wouldn’t expect her to have planned the entire thing.
AFTER DELIVERING ANupdate for Vera in the compendium, sleep claimed Kasira heavily that night, and she slumbered well into the following evening. She came to long enough to eat the buttery vegetable pie that had appeared in her room, then fell back under. Late afternoon sunlight slanted in through her window by the time she woke again the next day.
Atop the nightstand beside her bed sat a plate of cookies and a steaming cup of tea, along with a note that read:
Please get out of bed so I can change the sheets. It’s been two days!
—Iylis
She did not get out of bed, instead sleeping through the rest of the afternoon and that evening. When she blinked blearily awake the next morning, there was someone in her room.
She slid her hand silently beneath her pillow to where she keptthe small blade she had taken from Eirlana’s trunk. Her fingers curled around the handle, and in one motion, she threw back the covers and sat up … only to find Allaster sitting at her table, eating the fresh food Iylis had left for her. He devoured the last of her scone and drank the cup of tea in one long gulp.
Kasira lowered her knife. “That’s my breakfast.”
“It was.” He set the teacup down, and she reconsidered her decision not to stab him. His eyes flicked to the blade. “Wheredoyou keep all of those?”
Kasira stuffed the knife back under her pillow to remove the temptation. “When you spend your life looking over your shoulder, you learn to conceal a blade.” It was just as easily something Eirlana would say, though it was her own life Kasira thought of when she spoke. “Now, to what do I owe the pleasure of your company?”
“It’s dawn.”
Her fingers curled into the sheets. “I’m not interested in more sparring lessons. Either grant me magic, or leave me be.”
“Okay.”
“Okay?” she repeated. He’d said he intended to do it once she recovered, but she hadn’t quite believed him.
He stood and regarded himself in the mirror, running his fingers through his hair, which looked a faded copper in the morning light. “I said I would, didn’t I?”
“I suppose you did.”
Allaster caught her gaze in the mirror. Was it her, or were his eyes a shade paler than before?
“I have not, nor will I ever, lie to you,” he said. “You should know that, for what’s to come.”
“What’s to come?”
He waved a hand at her folded uniform, which lay at the foot of her bed. “Get dressed. Today’s going to be a long day.”
A distant tremor of excitement pulsed through her, the same feeling she used to get when the pieces of a con began to come together. She had earned Allaster’s trust enough to be granted a piece of Amorlin’smagic, and with her position as Assistant Librarian stable, she would be able to start work on the next stage of her plan.
Everything still felt a little off-kilter when she climbed out of bed, her muscles weak from the lingering effects of the venom. When her feet sank into a luxurious sapphire carpet that had appeared overnight, she very nearly lay right back down atop it, but she forced herself to trudge onward to the washroom. By the time she returned, there was a new set of sheets on her bed, alongside a fresh scone and a replacement cup of tea for the one Allaster had drunk.
