“The Lord Mayor’s friend makes it for their book club,” I remind him. “They were readingTardigard’s Revenge. And gave me an extra bottle.”
He takes a swig, and I deliberately do not watch the way his throat works as he swallows. Such responses to the masculine form are unbecoming of a princess.
“Ugh.” He shudders, wiping his mouth.
“It’s not that bad,” I say. I have found I actually quite like the stuff.
“It’s like drinking sugar,” he says, lifting the bottle to take another sip. “Concentrated sugar.”
“That was quite a mouthful, given how little you like it,” I say.
“If the only other thing you can offer me is turnip-leaf tea, Tandy,” he says, and I’m grateful that the dark room means he can’t see me blush when he says my name, “then I’d drink mead for the rest of my life.”
“Honestly, I don’t know why Mrs. Gooch was so excited about turnips,” I say, sipping my own mead. “I think anything might grow back there and I can’t see that turnips are especially…magically inclined vegetables. Why not grow pumpkins? Or strawberries? Something people like to eat? I’m beginning tothink it’s because she had the one book about turnips and never looked any further than that.”
“Perhaps she just liked them. People are very strange beasts, after all. I’ve always been very fond of pickles.”
I laugh and hiccup, and then clear my throat. “Who doesn’t like pickles? They’re not exactly divisive.”
“But I still don’t care much for mead,” he continues, taking another swig and grimacing.
“If you don’t like it,” I say, airily, “you needn’t drink it. You can go sip rainwater off a grape leaf.”
“Beggin’ yer pardon, Highness,” he says, tugging his forelock. “Dinnae mean to offend ye and yer precious honey-wine.”
“Oh, knock it off,” I say, finishing off my teacup. The rubbery loose-limbed feeling has returned, and I’m very relaxed, even if I’m excruciatingly aware of my lack of underthings. I don’t recall having ever been aware of a lack of underthings before, but I also can’t recall the last time I didn’t wear underthings when not planning on going directly to bed, or being in bed, or having just arisen from bed. My mind’s insistence on replaying the word “bed” is both inconvenient and irritating, and I decide to ignore it and move into less dangerous territory.
“So,” I begin, setting my teacup aside, “tell me about the sea witch.”
He’s slumped down in his chair a bit, his feet stretched out toward the fire, the bottle dangling from his fingertips in an irritatingly louche fashion. No one ought to look that comfortable drying out in front of a fire, a three-fifths-drunk bottle of mead in his hand. Especially with—outrageous!—the cat on his lap. Little traitor.
“I’d rather not,” he says. His voice isn’t at all slurred, but hedoes sound comfortable and perhaps a little less arch than usual. “I assume you’re just making conversation, and I’d rather make conversation about something else.”
“You shouldn’t assume things,” I say. There’s more to that saying, some sort of warning about what happens to people who do assume things, but the exact phrasing eludes me. Bel would know. “It’s not polite,” I add.
“Tandy,” he says, and I wriggle a little at the nice feeling of hearing him say my name, “what happens if you never break the curse?”
“I was wondering that myself,” I say. “Isn’t it sad to think about? I’ll never know what my heart’s desire is.” Before he has a chance to reply, I continue. “But what about your curse? That’s sad, too. You said you love the sea and now you’re stuck here.”
“Here’s not so bad,” he says. “At least I can leave the bookstore.”
“What’s it like? The curse?”
He shakes his head. “What’s it like when you try to leave?”
“It’s an invisible wall between me and everything else,” I say. “Stop avoiding the question.”
He’s quiet for a long moment. “Have you ever heard anyone describe vertigo? It’s like that. The closer I get to the edge of a cliff, the worse it gets. Only the cliff is the sea.”
“What did youdo?” I ask. How can I not know what he did to be the victim of such a horrible punishment?
He shrugs. “Doesn’t matter, really. I did it; here I am.”
“But it must have been very bad. She made you afraid of the entireocean. Did youkillsomeone?”
He chuckles. “Murder’s really not in my line. I’m very much more a ‘steal things and spend indiscriminately’ type of ship’s captain.”
“That’s a relief. Shouldn’t there be an element to your curse,like with mine, that lays out the condition for breaking it? The curses I read about all had that sort of…thing.” The mead has made everything feel a little fuzzy and thick. “Maybe if you told me exactly what she said…”
