Page 85 of A Forgery of Fate

He turned back to his bucket and scrubbed at a particularly stubborn stain. “Good.”

Good?What did he mean by that?

While I drank and pondered, Elang dipped the garment for one last rinse, then gave a satisfied grunt. It was a strangething to witness, the half dragon laundering a cloak in the middle of his library, and the sight brought an unexpected warmth to my heart.

“You really care about that cloak,” I remarked.

“I’ve had it a long time.” Elang gave it a final wring. “Here, you wear it.”

“Me?” I balked. “No…no. I’d get it dirty.”

“Then I’d wash it again. Keep it, you need it more than I.”

I accepted the cloak into my arms. The cloth was softer than it looked, and I resisted hugging it against my chest. “Aren’t you worried I’ll steal it?”

“You’re a forger, not a thief.”

“Some would argue those are one and the same.”

“They’re not to you,” he said.

My pulse fluttered. It was simply his way of speaking, as though everything were fact, yet the certainty in his voice took me aback. It was true, they weren’t. But how could Elang have known that?

I leaned against the wall, running my fingers down a long crack. “You know, sometimes I feel like I’ve met you before.”

Elang pushed his spectacles up his nose. “That’s not possible.”

“Maybe not,” I agreed. “But it’s a little coincidental, isn’t it? Me falling into your garden when you were looking for a painter with Sight?”

Elang retrieved the blankets I’d discarded, taking a sudden interest in folding them into a neat stack. “What are you saying?”

“I don’t know.” I found the red string around my wrist. I hadn’t paid much attention to it at our wedding, but now Inoticed a black thread braided into the center knot, as subtle as a strand of hair.

I tipped my head back against my divan. “Maybe instead of us pretending to like each other, we could try to be friends. It’d make all the smiling less agonizing. I’ve been told I grow on people—like moss.” I hesitated. “Gaari made it up. The friend you helped me—”

“I remember. What did he say?”

I stared into my tea. The memory was over a year old, but still clear in my mind.

“Who would have thought a clumsy thief like you would grow on me, Saigas?” Gaari had said to me with a chuckle. “You’re like moss, you know.”

“You’re likening me to a weed?”

I finished the rest of my tea in one gulp. “He said, ‘Moss is better than a weed. It brightens up the world with its presence, and flourishes even when all is against it.’ ”

Elang considered this. “He must have thought highly ofyou.”

“He was a good friend,” I said softly.

There was no point in feeling sorry for what had happened to Gaari. He wouldn’t want that. Still, it took effort for me to muster a smile. “How about it, Prince Elang? Friends, from now on?” I refilled my teacup and raised it to him. “You can even call me moss if you want.”

He looked at me blankly.

“That endearment you asked for.” I shrugged a shoulder, but I was smiling. “I still can’t think of anything else.”

“Moss,” Elang repeated. The faintest smile lifted the corners of his lips. It was nothing short of enchantment, howsuch a simple shift changed his face entirely, taming away its beastliness. I didn’t even realize I was staring.

He did. Suddenly my reflection blinked out of his eyes, and that hint of a smile vanished. He drew himself tall, as if recalling where he was, and with whom. “Make no mistake,” he said, taking a colder tone than I’d heard in days. “I endure your company for the sake of Yonsar. Any notion of befriending a human is offensive to my senses.”

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