Page 11

“You want me to walk into that pretending to be your date?” I ask. “I don’t know how to navigate that kind of world.”

“You don’t need to.” Sigurd rises from his chair and comes around the desk. “Rakan is marrying a human, remember? You won’t be the only one there.”

That helps, though not nearly enough. “I’m still a librarian from Saltweather who threatened to sue you less than an hour ago.”

“My mother respects audacity.” He stops several feet away, close enough that the chill from his body reaches me more strongly. “You broke into my office with a damp folder. You have plenty of that.”

“I broke into your office because I was desperate.” I tilt my head back to look at him. “That doesn’t mean I know how to survive a weekend at Mt. Qaf.”

“You don’t need to become someone else when you get there.” His voice drops slightly. “Navigate them exactly the way you navigated me, Ms. Priest. Refuse to be intimidated.”

Standing this close, I can see the faint light moving beneath the markings along his jaw and feel the steady cold coming off his skin. For several seconds, the wedding stops feeling like an abstract bargain.

I’m going to have to stand beside this man and convince a room full of strangers that touching him comes naturally. And the idea isn’t unappealing. Not unappealing at all.

The thought has barely settled when movement gathers in the far corner of the office.

The shadows thicken against the wall until a man in a charcoal suit steps cleanly out of them. The smell reaches me first: dry dust and old myrrh.

His skin is the pale gray of old chalk, and the stack of parchment in his hands looks almost as severe as he does. He doesn’t blink when he looks at me, and after another second, I realize his chest isn’t moving either. A lich.

Sigurd shows no surprise at his arrival. “Ms. Priest, this is Cassian Graves, my legal counsel. I asked him to prepare the agreement.”

Cassian’s undead presence makes a bizarre, infuriating kind of sense. Eiriksson Maritime wouldn’t hire a standard corporate lawyer to handle their acquisitions. Sigurd employs an immortal apex predator who likely drafted trade agreements during the Bronze Age.

“Mr. Eiriksson. Ms. Priest.” Cassian inclines his head to each of us. “I understand the terms remain under discussion.”

He crosses to the desk and places the parchment beside my drying records. The contract is thick and cream-colored, with dense black text broken by thin lines of faint gold.

Cassian turns it toward me. “You should read the agreement in full before signing. Mr. Eiriksson’s obligations are included alongside your own.”

That gets my attention immediately. Near the beginning, the contract states that Eiriksson Maritime will halt the evacuation, withdraw its personnel from the quay, and suspend enforcement of the notices once the agreement takes effect.

“This starts immediately?” I ask, keeping one finger beside the clause. “Not after the wedding.”

“Immediately,” Cassian confirms. “The obligation begins when the agreement is executed.”

I look at Sigurd. “And you’re comfortable putting that in writing.”

“I told you I would protect Saltweather.” His answer is steady. “You shouldn’t have to trust a verbal promise from someone you met today.”

That matters. More than I expected it to.

I continue through the document until Cassian begins explaining the section governing our public behavior. “The arrangement requires physical proximity in public spaces. Hand-holding, waist-tethering, and chaste affection are mandatory to maintain the appearance of an established relationship.”

I look up. “Waist-tethering?”

“It means my tentacles,” Sigurd says. “Do not worry. They are very polite.”

My eyes flick toward the thick limbs moving behind him before I can stop myself. Until this moment, I’ve managed not to think too closely about what pretending to date a kraken will require physically.

Now I picture one of those cool tentacles settling around my waist and drawing me against him. My body can’t help but react to the idea. I lower my attention to the parchment before my face can betray my frustrating response.

“Right,” I murmur. “Very polite.”

Cassian continues in the same dry tone. “You may also be required to share quarters at Mt. Qaf, potentially a bed. Sexual intimacy is explicitly excluded from the agreement.”

I find the clause myself and read it carefully. The boundary is stated plainly enough that there is no room for either of us to reinterpret it later.