Kami’s work still held; Cara looked not quite mortal anymore, although she was still so petite there was no mistaking her species. I loved best the little bits of her that were so clearly mortal, though: her twisted right canine, the freckles on her nose, the scar on her jaw that was close enough to faded that Kami had overlooked it.
Her skin was perfectly even and brighter than it had been before. Her hair was thick and shining, falling in perfect waves around her shoulders now instead of being tied back like usual. But she had jam on her lip now and powdered sugar and crumbseverywhere. She made an impatient sound, trying to brush them off. “I look like a mess.”
“You look perfect.” I bent down and kissed her.
She made another impatient sound, though it was hard to believe when she put her arm on my shoulder and pulled me closer the next second. I kissed her slowly, taking my time, and when I finally pulled away, we were both a little breathless.
Our lips just barely apart, I murmured, “You rubbed the jam off on my tunic, didn’t you?”
She let out a peal of a laugh that was not a denial, and I would have considered smearing a pot of jam across my chest myself to hear that laugh again. She laced her fingers through mine. “Can we look at the books?”
“Of course. We’ll be leaving the capital soon. We should stock up.”
“You’re so sure of Lightbringer?”
“I’m so sure of you.”
She pulled a face. She wasn’t able to accept my confidence as real, of course. It was maddening. “I assume I should pack light.”
“You should pack whatever you want. I’ll take care of it.”
She rolled her eyes. “Always so charming.”
The accusation didn’t sound quite so charged as usual. It almost might have been a compliment.
At the book stall, I stood back and watched her. She moved gracefully, despite the knife belt I’d buckled around her waist with the twin scabbards this morning; danger was always a part of my life, and I had dragged her into that fully, and I couldn’t bring myself to be sorry for making her part of my world.
She danced her fingertips over leather spines, pausing on certain books, passing over others without hesitation, doubling back once or twice with the faintest crease between her brows as if something had called her attention and she wasn’t quite sure why.
I didn’t want to interrupt. I would have bought her the whole damned stall, to be delivered to our next mission’s home base, and she would have found that overwhelming. I wandered to the next stall instead. She had worn amber jewelry for the Claiming, as was the custom: green amber at her ears and dangling from a lacy choker. I wanted to dress her in Bismyth purple.
The urge to give her a thousand gifts remained strong.
“You owe her,”Shadowbane reminded me.
I turned at the aggressive footfall behind me.
Corbyn had not aged well. The years showed in his jaw, in the set of his shoulders, in the particular hardness of a face that had spent too long inside the queen’s walls. His eyes were the same. That was what I always noticed about Corbyn: his eyes hadn’t changed since I was a boy, though the wrinkles around them shifted.
He crossed the last few steps and hit me.
I had been expecting it, which was why I managed to turn enough that it caught my jaw without his full force. Still rattled my teeth. Still moved me back a step.
“You found her. You found her and you said nothing.” His hand closed in the front of my shirt. “How long?”
“Corbyn—”
“How long?”
“We needed to protect her more than you needed to know?—”
The second hit was harder. I caught his wrist on the follow-through but didn’t twist it, didn’t turn the motion into an attack as I would normally have.
“Whendid you find my daughter?”
The third hit snapped my head sideways, and I tasted blood. He wanted to hit me again, but my hands were raised to block, not to strike, and he stuttered to a stop. Reluctantly. He wanted me to hit him back; he wanted an excuse to hit me and hit me and go on hitting me.
“You should have told me.” Quieter now. More dangerous. Close to ready to hit me again, and he grabbed my tunic and fisted it in his hand, yanking me toward him. I was experiencing an awful lot of that sort of thing since Cara came into my life. “You?—”
