Captain Fell.
Across the square, a voice boomed, magnified by a megaphone.
“That’s right!” a man shouted. He looked wealthy, dressed from head to toe in flashy silks with pearls sewn up and down the rims of his ears. “I’m offering ten thousand gadots to whoever can find me the Witch! Tell your friends! There’ll be an ad in tomorrow’s paper!”
For magic’s end.
He glanced over at Nes, but she paid the man no mind, too engrossed in the doughnut. She took a bite. A great big glob of blueberry jam slid onto her chin before her tongue darted past her lips and snatched it up.
Over the past few days, he hadn’t seen Nes once. He hadn’t sought her out, nor she him. Though he’d been loath to admit it, it bothered him in a way he didn’t understand.
“Who doesn’t love doughnuts?” he asked.
“Absolutely no one,” she said. “Suri and I love the bakery in theGash. We once spent four hours there trying every doughnut they had. Their powdered maple is by far the best, though Suri likes the strawberry ganache.”
He stared at the grin crinkling her cheeks—so different from the wicked one he’d seen in the brawlhouse. “Suri’s your friend?”
Her grin vanished. She paused her chewing, shrugged, and said, “Yeah, I guess,” before devouring her half of the doughnut. She said nothing more on doughnuts or Suri.
Again, he let the crowd push him to the next stall. In her dark blue cloak, Nes trailed him like a lost child.
“Did Fell see you?”
Between mouthfuls, she said, “Of course not. No one ever looks up.”
He looked up. Kamias Square was full of flapping tents and whipping flags, but beyond those, the steady roofs of the Gash, Tap, and Bark loomed. With her navy cloak, how easily Nes must have blended in with the blue roofing tile.
“Explain to me again why we can’t just grab and interrogate him,” Nes asked as she sucked the jam from her fingers. “There were plenty of opportunities while I tailed him over the last four days.”
Toran took another bite of his doughnut half. “Because he’s stubborn and arrogant. Not to mention trained to resist common interrogation tactics.”
Nes plucked the remaining bite of doughnut from his hand, shoving it in her mouth before he could object. “So use uncommon ones,” she said. Only, around all the doughnut, it sounded more like, “Zo lose uhamen unz.”
“What do you think we’re doing here?” Smirking, he turned to her and lightly tapped the left corner of his lips. She had a spot of blueberry jam tucked in the right seam of her mouth.
She grinned and wiped at the wrong corner.
He rolled his eyes. “Here,” he said, and leaned down. With the pad of his thumb, he gently grazed her lips, sweeping up the jam. Her eyestracked him as he brought his thumb up to his mouth and sucked down the last of the tangy jam.
Color blossomed in her cheeks and, for the briefest of seconds, his thumb caught behind his teeth. He yanked his thumb from his mouth, feeling heat rise to his own face, and turned away.
Turned and came face-to-face with Fell.
“Roada,” the other captain sneered, his dark eyes flitting from Toran to the stall beside him. “What are you doing here?”
It was only then Toran realized they’d stopped in front of a Lush wine vendor. He squashed the shame threatening to deepen the color in his cheeks and said, “That’s none of your business, Fell.”
Fell’s stare was hard as steel. “As I recently told you, Toran”—the use of his first name was a jab all its own—“everything you do is my business.”
From his shoulder, Nes piped up. “That sounds like an odd business. Do you get paid for it? ’Cause if not, that just makes you a stalker.”
Toran choked on his own breath.
Fell’s jaw clenched, his eyes flaring at the sight of Nes. “Perhaps I’m right to be a bit concerned if Roada is hanging around common criminals. Surely by now you’ve realized his reputation is suffering. He needs someone to boost him up, not drag him down.”
Nes bit her bottom lip and grinned. “Oh, you’d be surprised what sort of boost I can give him.”
Fell wrinkled his nose, turning his gaze back to Toran. “And here I thought you couldn’t sink lower than that island girl. When you’re done rolling with the filth and ready to get serious about your mission, seek me out.”
