Page 16 of Kit
Nick fought a smile as he climbed to his feet. “Just a joke,” he said.
Kit’s tail was still lashing as Nick approached. “I’m assuming you want me for something?”
“Anna is going to examine you before dinner. If the pain has eased, she’ll give you a smaller dose of painkillers.”
“Right. That’s this way, isn’t it?” Nick meandered his way to the med bay, recalling the path he’d taken to find it the first time. He walked slowly to get on Kit’s nerves, but when he glanced back to see if that worked, Kit was looking worriedly at Nick’s hip, concern in his eyes, not anger.
“How old are you?” Nick asked.
“Twenty.”
Nick stopped so abruptly Kit bumped into him. He stared hard at Kit’s face, but there was no hint of any deception. Kit wastwenty? He was the same age as Nick, and breaking into villas, abducting people? And against his will, Nick was thinking about Desre. About Kit’s fear of her.
“How long have you worked for Desre?”
That blank look Nick was growing to hate crossed Kit’s face. “Since I was a boy and my parents died. Ten, I believe. And you must call her Lady Desre.”
“And what is she?”
“A noble.”
“I mean, what type of monster, with her eyes black like that? I think one of Vi’s students had the same –”
Kit’s eyes flashed a warning. His hand shot out, catching Nick’s forearm in a bruising grip. “Do not call Lady Desre amonster.” Kit’s tail struck the wall of the hall with a thump. A passing sailor yelped in surprise, and after a glance at the two of them, he scuttled quickly away. Kit’s gloves creaked.
“I won’t,” Nick said.
Kit’s chest heaved. If Nick thought that Kit was offended by him calling Desre a monster, he’d have pushed. But Nick wasn’t stupid; this reaction wasn’t ‘offence’.
“My name is Nick.”
Kit stared at him, his body seemingly frozen in alarm. Nick gave him another second, then tugged. Kit’s eyes flicked down, and upset flashed across his face. He released Nick’s arm with a wounded noise. “I apologise. I hurt you again. But you cannot say such things about Lady Desre. If it gets back to her, you will be punished. She has cut out tongues for less.”
Nick wondered if Kit had been the blade used to inflict those punishments. If he got this upset for squeezing Nick’s arm, what state was he in after doing something worse?
Kit stared at Nick’s arm. The shirt’s sleeve hid the skin beneath. It was likely reddened, but Nick doubted it was any worse than that.
“It’s not sore,” Nick said.
Kit’s blue eyes rose slowly to Nick’s face. There was a nervous flutter in the muscles of his cheek, followed by a hard swallow. Kit released a long breath, and his lashing tail settled.
“I like your name.”
???
Nick sat at the ‘kids’ table with Kit, who supervised that everyone ate enough, and when Kit determined they hadn’t, he sent a child running to get another loaf of bread to split between them all. Nick watched the child race to the front of the line and, though he was too far away to hear the conversation, expressions and tail gestures told of an argument. The cook looked over at their table with a scowl, only to be met by Kit’s hard, unimpressed stare.
The kit returned with a loaf of breadandbutterandcheese. This was told with a raised chin and a preen. Kit returned a compliment that sent the child into a crow’s nest of delight.
Nick learned another thing about the translation symbol on his arm; it struggled when more than one person was talking. He understood every word at the start of the meal when Kit went from child to child asking for a ‘duties’ report. When the reporting was over and the kits all talked among themselves, a score of young voices rising all at once, every single one became incomprehensible.
Nick thought he might have been addressed once or twice, but whenever he glanced up and found little faces looking at him expectantly, he heard only a foreign language he couldn’t understand. When he didn’t respond, expectant expressions turned disappointed.
Kit walked Nick back to his room after the meal, tail slashing side to side in irritation. A firm scowl was in place when they reached the familiar room. “You can at least answer them; they had no say in your abduction.”
A knot formed in Nick’s throat, a wave of guilt rising within. He hadn’t intentionally not answered them. He itched to explain his behaviour and only just caught himself before asking Kit to apologise on his behalf. “Is this day two or three? I can’t remember.”
Kit made a frustrated noise in the back of his throat. His tail thumped hard against the wall. “Two,” Kit replied, aggrieved.
