Page 69 of Tell No Tales
"Since when do you need to speak to him?" Nola asked.
"For this to work, I need his consent." Vadim felt like he was overemphasizing his hand gestures, but he couldn't help it. He felt more fluid and relaxed than he'd ever felt before. He didn't want to think about the reason. "If I drop this choice on him before he understands, he might—"
"Fuck's sake, Vadim." Nola rolled her eyes. "Have you ever done anything the easy way?"
He grinned. "What would be the fun in that?"
"Wait. Where are your gloves?" Nola took a step back.
He stared at his hands. "I hadn't even noticed."
Klaus sauntered up beside him and tugged the gloves from his back pocket. "I wondered when you were going to miss them. Ah-ah," he stopped Vadim from shrouding his left hand with his glove. "That one's mine."
Nola frowned at Klaus. "You're responsible for this?"
"I forgot," Vadim said.
"Yes," Klaus said at the same time. "I'm the reason he forgot. He doesn't need them."
"He does," Nola insisted. "Otherwise, we might end up adrift on the sea for hours while we're all unconscious, or worse."
Klaus kept hold of Vadim's ungloved hand and stepped between him and Nola. "He can control himself around his friends. Strangers? Eh. But friends, definitely."
Vadim sighed. "It's not me they have to worry about. It's Coryn." He wrestled his hand away from Klaus and pulled his glove on. "Brigham said she has another death weaver, but if she needed to pull power from me, like she did on Melham Island, even the ship could suffer."
"That was Coryn?" Nola shook her head. "Why didn't you tell anyone?"
"Once she's used someone's power, it's impossible to break her hold on them."
"That's a damn lie, one she probably told you." Nola grabbed his arm and started pulling him toward her ship. "There is a way."
Twenty minutes later, after introductions to the freed youth, whose eyes grew round with awe at his name, they were in Yvette's quarters. Klaus sat beside Vadim on the bed, leaving Nola to lean against the cabin door. At leastWildfiredidn't have a head - they dangled over the rigging or used chamber pots, and Yvette didn't seem to have one in her room.
"I showed you how to shield from me," Yvette reminded him. "You can use that against her, too."
"Even if she's stronger than I am?"
"She's not." Yvette leaned back against the wall of the ship and pulled her feet up to rest her head on her knee. "She doesn't control her power. The only other death weaver I know who would work with her is Fanidra."
Gods. Fanidra was terrifying. "Did you see her?" he asked Klaus.
"You know I didn't," Klaus said. "I don't know anyone named Fanidra, either."
Vadim nodded. "Klaus didn't see the death weaver on her ship."
"I honestly don't know if her death weaver was on the ship," Klaus said. "I didn't sense one."
"Suppressor?" Yvette asked.
Fanidra had always been difficult to sense, even when they were alone in a room together. "Enchantment," Vadim breathed. "Her choker, the one she's always touching. I found it strange—she clings to it when someone approaches her, like they've hurt her."
"That's astute of you." Yvette grinned. "You're more observant than I thought." She glanced up at him and smirked when his face burned from her praise. "It bothered you more than you let on."
"Your rejection?" He snorted. People had done far worse. "It didn't feel good, but you weren't the first."
"Wait. Rejection?" Klaus frowned at him.
"At school," Yvette said. "Vadim acted like he didn't care if anyone liked him, and for the most part, we didn't. He was from Aquarion, and we all knew and hated Martiz."
