“Well, we have a deal. If you don’t get chosen, then what? Going to make me sleep curled up in the stables, after all?”
“Then you’ll help me out in my shop for the summer until the next ship arrives.”
“Hmm. I don’t really know anything about smithing.” She stabbed her last piece of bacon with her fork and popped it into her mouth.
I folded my arms and leaned back in my chair. “No, I suppose not. Your skill is more on the murdering side.”
Her fork scraped against her plate, and she glanced up at me with narrowed eyes. But then the tension vanished, and she smiled—fake again. “Keep talking to me like that, and I’ll give you a first-hand demonstration of just how skilled I truly am.”
“Careful. Skoll doesn’t take kindly to strangers threatening his master.”
“Ha. Then why is his tail wagging?” Delight danced in her eyes as she lowered her plate to the floor to let Skoll have the crumbs. He greedily licked them up, and his tail was in fact thumping away with wild abandon. The traitor.
“Skoll,” I called out.
He lifted his shaggy head, and I tossed my last slice of bacon toward him. With glee, he snapped his teeth at the air and gobbled it up, and then immediately went back to Daella’s plate to thoroughly inspect it for any crumbs he might have missed.
“Competition aside,” Daella said, lacing her hands on the table and leaning forward. She blinked her big brown eyes at me. “I have an exceedingly important question. How in fate’s name do you have water coming out of a spout?”
“Ah. I should have known you’d wonder about that. It’s called running water. We got it after one of the Games a few years back. The winner, our baker Milka, asked the island for an easier way to bathe. It gave us this, far beyond anything we could have dreamed up ourselves.”
Her eyes widened. “You’re telling the island gave you something as significant as that?”
“I told you,” I said. “It can give us anything.”
“Then why not ask it for something bigger? Something that could change the world?”
“Most people here don’t want to change the world. They just want to improve our lives bit by bit each year.”
“You could ask for the death of the emperor.”
I draped an arm across my knee and eyed the distance between her hand and my knife. I hadn’t given her one with her own plate for very obvious reasons. And now she was trying to lure me into saying I wanted the emperor to die. According to her laws, that would be worth my head. Isveig was a fucking tyrant.
“You can’t ask for the death—or even harm—ofanyone,” I said carefully. “But especially not of someone who isn’t on the Isles. The magic only works here, like I said.”
“But that would solve all your problems, wouldn’t it?” she asked. “The death of Emperor Isveig?”
“You speak very casually when your words could get you killed.”
She raised her brows. “So youhaveheard about what it’s like in the Grundstoff Empire these days.”
I knew better than most.
Nodding, I shifted my hand to the left so that my palm covered the knife. “Every now and again, someone washes up on our shores, and that someone is usually from the empire. We’ve heard about his laws. He forbids anyone to even speak of his death. Doing so puts you on the wrong end of a scythe.”
A ghost of a smile flickered across her lips. “The Isles of Fable are not a part of the Grundstoff Empire. So his laws do not apply here.”
“You’re one of his murks.”
“Not by choice.”
I sat up a bit at that. “It’s in the name, Daella. Mercenary. You’re his hired blade, doing his bidding for coin.”
“You’re right. I have a chest full of ice pennings and a bit of gold. Isveig has tried to keep me happy over the years, and he thought he could buy my loyalty. That doesn’t mean it was ever my decision.” Her cheeks were bright pink.
My heart pounded as I took in that fire in her eyes. Could I have been wrong about her? Surely not. Daella was infamous around these parts for doing whatever her emperor asked of her.
“So you never signed a contract?” I asked.
