She shrugged out of the clothes she was wearing, dressing in the new outfit quickly. She tucked her toes into her boots and slid the ribbed dagger in the boot opposite the smooth one. She stole a scarf from Suri’s vanity and tied her hair up in a ponytail that looked just as jagged as her knife.
Then she snatched her winter cloak from the bed, leaving the rest of her clothes to wither and rot.
The raucousness of the gambling den was a drum in the back of her head. So loud, so distracting, for a time she couldn’t think of Toran.She sat at tables, wiping men clean of their coin in numerous games of Blank before she stole the last remaining seat at the bar.
I don’t love you.
In that moment, she’d forgotten where she was, forgotten who she was. Her heart had yawned open, and she’d foolishly thought the feeling was contagious.
But I feel it.
She curled her toes tight around the rung of her stool. Sudden anger pulsed inside her.
How easily I could.
It would still be easy. Like launching herself off a roof, landing be damned. Exhilarating but as easy as one step. And that, more than his reaction, was what angered her. Because now she wanted something she couldn’t have. She’d broken their game with those four little words.
She’d felt his heartbreak and his love, however small, and the most dangerous feeling of all. Her own hope. Goddess save her. She should have never put her own heart on the table.
Never bet with things of sentimental value. It was the first thing she’d learned watching the card games in the Siren’s Hair. The chances of losing were always higher. The game or the odds didn’t matter. Once you put something you loved on the line, your focus lay with it. Not the game. So you’d lose. Every time.
She knew better. Yet she had still played like an amateur.
The night eased on, and the crowd in the gambling den thinned. A few patrons sat at tables scattered about the floor. She became the lone person at the bar.
Pulling her flask from her belt, she unscrewed the top and brought it to her lips. A few drops dribbled out before the metal ran dry. It had only been a matter of time before she came up empty. To go without, especially given their plans tomorrow, was a risk. But she’d risked far more for far less in the past. She could last one more day.
Suri, in her violet feathered uniform, strode over to her at last. Sheset a glass down between them. “Want some?” she asked, raising a bottle of liquor.
Nes shook her head. The thought of putting anything else in her stomach made her want to gag.
Suri poured herself a shot and downed it upon impact. Then poured another, this time letting the liquor swim in the glass.
“Do you ever think about him?”
Nes had never asked Suri about the man she’d left at the altar back in Brevna. The story was Suri’s to tell, and Nes hadn’t wanted to pry. But now she wondered what their relationship had been like before Suri ran away—wondered if her friend ever regretted her decision.
“Him?”
“Your fiancé.”
“Ah.” Suri set the liquor bottle down, wrapping her fingers around the short glass instead. “Sometimes.”
“You left because you didn’t love him, right?”
“Not exactly.” Suri stared hard at the fingernail’s depth of liquor. “I always tell myself I left because I wanted a life of my own, but that was a lie.”
“Then why did you leave?”
“Because I did love him.”
Nes laid her hand out flat on the bar, but Suri kept hers tight around the liquor glass.
“But I could see he was falling for someone else,” Suri explained. “So rather than make the two of us live through that pain, I ran.”
Nes swallowed a tightness in her throat. She’d just done the same exact thing to Toran. Or maybe she was only saving herself from pain by running. “And are you happy here?”
Suri looked up from the glass, her green eyes solid. She pushed the liquor across the bar to Nes. “I’m not the one who needs to answer that question.”
