Page 18 of Brought to Light
Oskar hadn’t gone for his sword again, and fuck, but I was getting tired by now. I propped myself up against the wall and risked crossing my arms, taking my hand off my gun in the process. It didn’t surprise me that they couldn’t send me home; I’d guessed as much. And I also guessed that Oskar, at least, would’ve been all for booting me out of his realm as fast as he could, if he could.
“Linden didn’t get a chance to tell me exactly why Evalt’s after him,” I said as casually as I could manage. “If I’m not going anywhere, then you might as well fill me in while Linden’s sleeping.”
Kaspar opened his mouth—yes, good, someone wasfinallygoing to tell me what the fuck was going on—and then Oskar cut him off. “We all need to sleep while we can,” he said. Which, yes. But fuck. “Eat, sleep, regroup in the morning. We’ll have a long march ahead of us. Plenty of time for everyone to say his piece.” Oskar leveled me with an ominous stare as he said the last few words. Clearly, he expected me to talk too. He was going to be disappointed, but I didn’t bother telling him that.
Kaspar nodded and shared out the food, leaving enough for Linden when he woke. They offered me whatever was in the bottle, but I turned it down in favor of water. The last thing I needed was more fairy shit fucking me up.
The inside of the hunting lodge held almost the same chill as the outside, and all we had were bare floorboards. I’d slept rougher than that by far, though, and settled down next to the wall outside the room where Linden slept. Kaspar and Oskar took their own sections of floor, with Oskar arranging himself right across the front door. I approved. Kaspar grumbled a little, but at last he went still, and silence settled over the lodge, broken only by everyone’s breathing and the faint and distant hoot of an owl.
Part of me wanted to stay on watch. I didn’t trust these fuckers, I didn’t know what other dangers there could be—but I’d be useless if I didn’t get some rest. I closed my eyes and forced myself under.
Plenty of time to be suspicious in the morning.
Chapter Nine
Linden
My stomach woke me up by trying to do a somersault, turn inside out, and strangle me. Ancestors, but I’d have given every bit of magic I possessed for the sort of breakfast my mother always made: stewed fruit and fluffy sweet breads, tea and juice and buttered oatcakes. Another growl from my belly forced me up. Unfortunately, my magical abilities wouldn’t stretch to conjuring a feast, and I’d have been suicidal to try to use magic anyway. In his own realm, Lord Evalt’s sorcery would be far harder to evade.
That thought left me fighting a headache as well as a bellyache. The night before, I’d been too tired to think, too tired even to worry. Exhaustion had pushed away longing for my mother’s embrace, and desperate homesickness, and terror for my family and my friends. And for myself.
But now, a little bit of light filtered in through the high, narrow window in the lodge’s small bedchamber, enough to show me dawn had come. It was a new day. My troubles couldn’t be put off any longer.
Near-silence still reigned, though. Even the birds hadn’t fully woken yet. Soft snores filtered in from the next room, and I smiled despite everything. Kaspar always snored, and I’d have recognized that long snorting build with the small hitch at the end anywhere, after years of bunking together on excursions like this.
Only those had been for pleasure, not because I was running away from a powerful magician hell-bent on killing me to satisfy his interpretation of a prophecy.
Breakfast. Surely everything would seem less miserable after…I rubbed my hands over my chilled face. Slightly stale bread and a piece of cheese, probably. Well. Unlikely that I’d be significantly less miserable, then. But I’d prefer it to starving to death before Lord Evalt could murder me.
Freezing cold slapped my skin once I crawled out from under the blankets, not that I’d been cozy with them on. Why hadn’t Oskar kept this place up at all? It’d been a little unwelcoming even when we’d visited before—but then again, we’d been better supplied.
A little twinge of guilt for my mental complaints hit me as I peeked out into the main room. All three of my companions lay stretched out on the bare, dusty floor, and not one of them had a blanket at all, let alone two. I jumped as Callum woke and rolled into a crouch all within half a second. Was the man half cat?
I knocked into the doorframe, waking Kaspar and Oskar, who both stirred and sat up. “Good morning, Callum,” I said in English, a little sheepishly. I knew a blush had spread over my cheeks; at least my face wasn’t cold anymore. It was embarrassing enough to stumble into a wall, but looking at Callum only made it infinitely worse. He’d been unshaven the day before, and now he had the sort of several-day stubble that would scratch perfectly against my throat, or my chest, or my inner thighs.
By the time I forced those thoughts away, my face could’ve cooked an egg, if we’d had one available.
“You’re clumsy this morning,” Oskar said, with perfect, humiliating timing.
“Well, I woke up cold and hungry,” I retorted in my own language. “You could at least have let Callum share the bed with me. He’s big enough to keep me warm.” Kaspar opened his mouth and started to protest, a strange expression on his face, but I barreled right over him. “And I thought we were past you two trying to protect me by keeping attractive men out of my bed! I’m grown up, aren’t I?”
A strange silence fell. All three of them stared at me. Callum had a look in his eyes I couldn’t interpret at all. As if he’d…as if he’d understood me.
“I made Callum a spell cake last night,” Kaspar finally said. “So that he could speak to us.”
Another silence. “Oh,” I said faintly. The top of my head buzzed, and my cheeks could’ve fried every egg in the realm. “I was—I was joking,” I stammered, staring down at my feet. I couldn’t look up and meet Callum’s eyes, even though I could feel the weight of his gaze.
“I need to take a piss,” Callum said into the charged silence, rose, and headed for the door. Oskar had to scramble out of his way. Callum practically stepped on him to get the door open, shoved through it, and shut it hard behind him.
I didn’t know what reaction I’d have liked to announcing to the room that I’d wanted Callum to sleep with me, but Ididknow that wasn’t it.
“What an asshole,” Oskar said. “And you’re better off without the complication. I still think there’s a better than even chance he’s Evalt’s spy. And,” he went on mercilessly, “I don’t believe you told us everything yesterday. Your story about meeting Callum in the first place had a few holes.”
I swallowed hard. My story had been—not a fabrication, because the magic in my blood prevented that. But I’d left out more than I’d told. I’d emphasized Callum saving me from the other assassin, and glossed over why he’d been there in the first place as much as I could. And yesterday, I’d gotten away with it, since we’d only had a few minutes to talk between the efforts of getting out of the labyrinth and hiking to the lodge.
But now I had Oskar’s full attention. And he could be relentless. It made him a fearsome opponent in a fight, and a troublesome opponent in an argument.
“He’s not spying for Lord Evalt,” I said. That I did believe. He’d been sent to kill me, not inform on me. Yes, he’d tried to shake as much information out of me as he could, but it was the kind he wouldn’t have needed if he was Evalt’s spy. “He promised he wouldn’t hurt me.” That came out sounding more plaintive than confident.
