Page 68 of Cursed Shadows 2

The very smile that tells me he didn’t overhear any tensions between Aleana and I—and so, I am unafraid.

And I even start to let myself wonder if my fight with father was the start of Daxeel’s thawing. What it might mean to him that I finally stood my ground against my father, that I did not deny our relations in front of my family and the garrisoneavesdroppers and onlookers—that I let him claim me so publicly.

I wonder just how much that fight has changed things.

Rune smacks his hand down on the bar, jerking me out of my thoughts, snapping me out of this locked gaze with Daxeel I only just now realize I was stuck in.

“Aleana wants to go home,” he says and, as I hear the words, I look over at the stool. But she’s not there, and with a quick glance around, I find her leaning against the wall by the butterfly curtain.

She has no glower saved for me. No trace of our spat on her weary, slack face. At first glance, one might think she’s sleeping, slumped against the wall.

“Samick’s staying.” With a glance at me, Rune adds, “Eamon, too.”

I nod, then I flatten my hand against Daxeel’s chest.

His gaze snaps down to me.

“Will you walk me to Comlar?” I can’t brace the walk alone. Not in the dead of the Quiet—it’s much too dangerous, and Taroh is still out there, somewhere. I don’t fancy stumbling into him, drunk.

For a beat, Daxeel considers me. A loose strand of hair falls into his eye, brushing over the thick length of his lashes. “No.”

My heart drops to my bottom.

Slowly, my hand slips down his chest as I loosen a breath. “Oh.”

Rune doesn’t give us a moment of privacy. He just draws his hand back from the bar, then—using a stretched ribbon—fingers his golden hair into a lazy bun.

Stealing my focus, Daxeel’s grip on my waist tightens. He tilts his head and the blue light of the ripple water above dances over the inky lines lashing up the side of neck. “You will stay with me this Quiet.”

Rune pushes back from the bar. I don’t watch as he goes to prepare Aleana for our leave, I keep my gaze locked up at Daxeel.

“Yes,” is all I say.

Still on my side, his hand firms and it brings a smile to my lips.

Then he snaps the moment like a twig as he lifts his gaze over my head. With his free hand, he reaches out for the quill that the bartender offers him and signs his name on a smooth piece of parchment. The tab.

Slipping his hand back around to the small of my back, he steps away from the bar, and takes me with him.

Rune and Aleana lead the way, and I’m grateful that the latter is as rocky as a boat in a storm, because then she can’t hint at our disagreement, and then Daxeel won’t turn on me.

I have my schemes to work on.

I have a bond to forge.

On the way out, Eamon winks his goodbye at me—a wink given from the loveseat in the corner, the one he’s sat on beside Ridge. I don’t intrude with a kiss farewell, I let him have his time without someone to babysit, to coddle.

Before I dip through the curtains with Daxeel, I look over my shoulder at Samick. He plays against Luna at darts, and his farewell is an icy, lingering look before he pitches a black metal dart into the target—a live pixie.

Samick spears its little heart in one effortless throw.

Guess he isn’t snacking on them anymore, but I’m not certain which is a worse fate for those poor little critters.

With a twisted grimace, I lean into Daxeel and leave the Gloaming.

After a quarter-hour of bridges and canals and narrow lanes and wider roads, we have cut through the centre of the town, and made it up the sloped streets to the nicer homes. These ones don’t sag and wilt, they have no vines criss-crossing overhead, and no kelpies left tethered to posts on the road.

This is the affluent part of Kithe, it doesn’t take a trickster to figure that out.

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