Page 109 of Caging Darling

The Nomad’s brow lifts. “You are aware that prostitution is not permitted in the Gathers. I find it distracts the crew.”

It’s a taunt. Everyone in the room knows that, but Phoenix remains firm. “We’d be sailors.”

“Are you trained?”

“No, but I have an exchange that would be worth your while.”

“Is that so?”

“I know the location of the faerie you’re looking for. Tink, I believe her name is.”

My heart jumps in panic. I grab at Phoenix’s arm, but she shrugs me off.

“You can’t,” I plead, but Phoenix isn’t even looking at me.

The Nomad’s lips curl into a smile. “Should your information prove true, I’m willing to strike you a bargain.”

Phoenix shakes her head. “Not a fae bargain.”

“You’d trust my word?” asks the Nomad.

“I trust that I have what you want. And that making Venus and I sailors in your crew is hardly enough of a price to pay to register to you.”

The Nomad can’t seem to help himself. He leans back in his chair, cascading his fingers together with his palms. “I could take your information, then sell you and your friend to the highest bidder. Without a fae bargain, you have no insurance.”

Phoenix remains firm, saying nothing. Instead, she waits.

The Nomad raises a brow. So does Astor next to me.

“Please,” I whisper to Phoenix, but she looks straight ahead, spine rigid.

“Very well,” says the Nomad. “Where is Tink?”

“Hiding out in Shrinedale,” she says. “She’s staying at Whittaker Manor.”

My ears perk at that, and Astor and I exchange a confused look. I’ve met Whittaker a few times when he visited my father on business trips. He isn’t the type I’d expect to keep a faerie inhis employ, which has my heart racing for both Tink’s safety and Michael’s.

“And how am I to know this information is accurate?” asks the Nomad.

“Men like Vulcan have few they trust, though that doesn’t stop them from having the urge to confess their secrets. His muses?—”

“We weren’t just his whores,” snaps Venus, speaking up for the first time. She’s standing straight, her palms fisted by her sides, the crazed look in her eyes the most focused I’ve seen them since Vulcan’s death. “We were his companions, his confidants. Men like Vulcan don’t know how to make friends. People thought he bought us simply for our bodies, but he was much too lonely for just that. You can trust what Phoenix has to say. He told me the same thing.” There’s no competitiveness in her tone. Just solidarity.

Phoenix nods.

“I suppose if your information proves faulty, I can always kill you,” says the Nomad.

Phoenix and Venus glance at each other, though neither appears worried.

It hits me then how much Vulcan must have entrusted his anxieties to them without actually trusting them. He’d possessed the inherent urge to confess, to share his mind with others, while all the while putting out postmortem bounties on them in case they ever betrayed him.

I suppose in the end, the desire for intimacy rules above all else, even paranoia.

“I suppose we’re headed to Shrinedale, then,” he says, glancing at me with a challenge in his eyes. Like he knows I also knew this information and was holding onto it as long as possible. “The two of you better get me Tink before Vulcan’s bounty ends with the death of any of us.”

I purse my lips in answer.

“Very well,” says the Nomad. He rings the bell on his desk and a servant hastily enters the room. “Take these two to the lower deck. Give them quarters. Oh, and have someone bring dinner to their rooms. And a change of clothes,” he says, eyeing their scant garb with something bordering on distaste.

---