“Would you care for more?” Lev’s tone is as effervescent as the fumes drifting off the vodka. “We do have an entire bottle of this fine liquor at our disposal.”
“Ass,” I grumble.
He grins, then merrily proclaims, “Next round’s on the king’s tab.”
The tavern goes so silent that I can hear the drip of the icicles hugging the roof.
“Gods, you’re a humorless crowd. The Craven King pays my salary, thus, my jest about a round on his tab.” Lev rolls his eyes and picks up our bottle, splashing the clear liquid into Ivan’s glass. And then he replenishes the other empty glasses within his reach, including mine. “Ivan? A toast.”
Singling out the young male with the ochre teeth and rank breath flicks him out of his stupor. For long seconds, Ivan stares between Lev, me, and the glass in front of him. I think he’s caught on that we’re not two random halflings who’ve stumbled into the human district to wet our beaks and fill our stomachs,and my fingers curl in my lap. Though part of me still wishes Lev hadn’t insisted on accompanying me, he’s here now, which makes his safety my responsibility.
My fingertips tingle, but my ruby nails don’t darken to steel. Which is alarming. Could the Tin Teapot be warded against Crows?
“Perhaps my wife would like to propose a toast?” I assume Lev is calling on me because Ivan has yet to speak up, but then he adds, “She was so eager for a tipple at your tavern, Svyato.”
Lev knows the barkeep’s name? How? Was it mentioned aloud by one of his customers, and I missed it?
I seize my glass with one hand, keeping the other on my lap. “I do have something to say.” I drive the tip of my thumbnail into the scab on my index finger until I bleed, then begin to draw a sequence of expanding arcs on the underside of the table. “I’d like to raise a toast to the woman who tried. Long live Alyona of Glace.” I toss back the nasty drink, gaze darting over the rapt crowd. I spot mostly shock and suspicion.
Lev’s hand plummets as though the tiny glass suddenly weighs too much. The vodka sloshes out and puddles around his long fingers.
I’m about to add, “Long live her memory,” but the words wither in my throat, because the muddy-brown tint of his irises has faded, and not to amber.
12
ISLA
Lev’s mouth moves, but I don’t catch his words over the intensifying drum of my pulse. I pivot more fully toward him and palm his chest like a lover, even though my intent is the farthest thing from romantic.
The instant I feel the hard shape of metal beneath the fabric, my disquiet morphs to anger. There are few things I hate more than being fooled.
“I think we’ve outstayed our welcome.” Lev—not Lev—cinches my wrist with fingers that aren’t long because I made them so, but because they’re genuinely his.
I bet that bywe, he meansme, and that the welcome I outstayed isn’t the barkeep’s, but his.
“We haven’t finished our bottle.” My tone is as flat and crisp as those toasts his sister dunked in her tea this morning.
A muscle judders his borrowed jawline. Part of me is tempted to refresh his glamour, but another part of me is damn tempted to let his true face bleed through. To think I felt bad when they called him a coward… He might not be gutless, but heisa trickster.
“It won’t go to waste in here,” Konstantin promises, his gaze scrolling over the crowd before perching back on me. He suddenly drops my wrist to palm my cheek, the tips of his fingers spearing through my hair.
I suspect my feather is beginning to show. After all, I changed our appearances at the same time. Without moving his hand off the side of my face, he shoves his cask stool back, stands, and tosses a few silver coins on the table.
Even though Glacin currency is different from ours, I sense, from the widening stares of the tavern-goers, that what he’s left is an absurd amount. One that’s bound to arouse suspicion. Then again, we’ve evidently already checked that box.
As I get to my feet, I swipe my empty shot glass from the table. “Zah’jeen!” I toss out the Glacin toast with much enthusiasm, then pretend to drink, even though I’m aware the cup is empty.
Konstantin must decide that walking with a hand pressed against my cheek is odd, because he brushes out my still-blonde hair until it drapes across my eye, then tucks me into his side.
It’s only once we’ve exited the tavern that I grumble, “Fear of heights, huh?”
“I don’tloveheights.” Konstantin’s beard is receding, and his ears lengthening…tapering.
“Explains why you live underground,” I snap, securing my glass under the waistband of my pants. “What it doesn’t explain is why you pretended to be Lev.”
I pull away from him and trudge around the tavern toward the kitchen, determined to find out whether the theory that drew me to the Tin Teapot has any legs.
“Where are you going?” he hisses.
