“Very…” The pirate pauses. “Droopy. I think your melancholy friend will like him a lot.”
Droopy. That probably means Belancz, crown prince of the city-state of the Five-Fold Night, who has made it very clear over the years that he’d prefer to spend his time writing epic poetry instead of governing. Or socializing.
“I doubt this one will be much fun for an audience,” I say. “You needn’t bother.”
“On the contrary, I have very high hopes for this one,” he says. “He looks exceedingly glum about the prospect of breaking your curse and being stuck as your one true love.”
“You say the nicest things,” I grumble.
“So far you’ve had one who was quite excited about the prospect, and one who worried that breaking your curse would mean he wasn’t in love with someone else. This one seems very certain that hewillbreak the curse, but that he won’t like it at all.”
“He wouldn’t,” I agree. “And neither would I.”
He laughs. “Cheer up. Maybe this kiss will be transformative for you both.”
An hour later, the pirate is still lounging about on the stairs, and Bel hasn’t shown up yet. I’ve tried very hard to ignore the pirate, but it’s hard work, given how immensely and utterly aware of him I am. I busy myself with a letter to Honey, which is mostly just doodles. At one point, the pirate shifts, knocking over a few books, and I look up.
“If you haven’t got anything better to do than make a mess,” I say, hoping he’ll catch my drift and leave.
“I haven’t,” he agrees, showing no sign that he’s going to take my meaning and depart.
“Fine.” I set my quill down. “Why do you leave things in exchange for what you take? I’ve sent for a book about water magic but it hasn’t arrived yet, so if it’s to do with your curse, I might understand. But otherwise, it’s just…” Sasha’s opinion comes to mind. “Weird,” I conclude.
He leans back on the stairs and grins at me, and I feel myself blush. “It’s just good manners, really,” he says. “If you take something, you have to leave something behind; else things become unbalanced.”
“You don’thaveto take things, you know.”
“I’m afraid I do, actually. Pirate code.”
“You’re not a piratenow,” I point out.
“Once a pirate, always a pirate: On the sea or not, we are what we are.” His voice is light, but I get the sense that he means what he says very seriously.
“Do you steal from other townsfolk? Do you have a collection of…of…lettuce leaves and threads and thimbles and pipe stems that you keep in my teacup?”
He shrugs. How irritating.
“You didn’t leave anything behind when you stole my books,” I point out. “The first time you were here.”
“Perhaps,” he says. “Perhaps not.”
“Then youdidleave something,” I say.
“Maybe.”
I scowl. “I haven’t found anything.”
“Maybe you didn’t recognize it for what it was.”
I decide to ignore that. “In any event, you must be running out of things to leave behind now—I made you empty your pockets that time, remember? And now the contents of your pockets from that day are, in sum, in a bowl on my table.”
“Intriguing conjecture,” he says.
“I just want to understand what you’re doing,” I say, annoyed.
He grins, his aggravating dimple reappearing. “Like I said, it’s just good manners.”
“I don’t believe you.”
