This will be fun, p.10
This Will Be Fun, page 10
“I set out to find only the worst of people, hoping to prove to myself that my talent was worthwhile. And sometimes I got tasked with little side quests along the way, like how you and I met.” Vandra paused, letting the moment sink in. “By that point, the Deathrose Guild had been asking me to join for years, and I’d been turning them away, not wanting to make my job that legitimate. Then Galwell died, and I realized that I no longer wanted to work alone.”
It struck Elowen then how Vandra was one of the only other people outside of the Three who knew Galwell at all. Vandra had seen his heroics up close, but she’d also seen his failings. She’d caused some of them, in fact. While it bothered Elowen how often strangers used her brother’s death as a reason to alter their own lives, she found it rather touching that his absence had affected Vandra in such a way.
“That quest had brought me a sense of community, even if it came from antagonizing the four of you at every turn,” Vandra continued. “I thought the guild could provide me that in an even deeper way. As the years ticked by, I realized that so much of my life had been built around deceit, and no one knew the real me. When I left the guild, it only proved my point. They’d all cared about what I accomplished as an assassin, using it as fuel to be even better themselves, but no one cared that I was gone. Except for River. So now I’m finally trying to get what I’ve never really let myself have—a life I’m proud to tell my parents about.”
“I see,” Elowen said, taking it all in. She had known small fragments of Vandra’s life. That she was an only child. That she always tried to make monthly dinners with her parents, even while questing. Now she saw the bigger picture. How Vandra’s sunshine facade disguised so much more than even Elowen the heart magician had seen. “I would be proud of you, if I were your family,” she admitted.
Vandra blushed. “Thank Ghosts you’re not,” she said, flustered by Elowen’s sincerity.
Elowen bit down on her lip, preventing herself from saying anything more. She’d thought by choosing to eat the meal in public, she would avoid any intimate moment that could be brought on by eating together in bed. Yet somehow Elowen found this to be an even more vulnerable affair. Worse, Elowen found herself not just moved by all she’d learned, but deeply invested in Vandra’s hope for a better life.
8
Beatrice
“We’re booked.”
The innkeeper did not hesitate. In fact, the dour woman had hardly laid eyes on Beatrice, instead glancing past her to the line of people waiting to check in elongating into the creaky, firelit lobby of the roadside inn.
“Please,” Beatrice pressed. “You must have something. Even rooms with”—she grimaced—“only one bed? We’ll make do—”
“No,” the innkeeper replied. “No beds. No rooms with no beds. I’m sorry, but—” The woman gestured to the crowd of guests. “Festival weekend is our busiest of the year. The entire realm’s traveling to Queendom to celebrate the Four. Now with the queen’s wedding . . .” Stress furrowed gorges in the innkeeper’s brow.
Beatrice had grown up accepting the hand she’d been dealt was always smaller than those around her, and it was a mark of pride that she had never asked for more. Sure, she would marry a boring nobleman to briefly raise her status, but she would never beg.
Even worse than begging was using her celebrity for advantage. Absolutely abhorrent to her.
Nevertheless . . .
Without a room in this inn, Beatrice knew she would consign herself to the worst of fates. She would need to camp out with Clare. She couldn’t stand the very idea of the cool night surrounding them, the carpeting of grass underneath them, the music of wild things filling the night. The sound of him drifting to sleep. The seclusion. The closeness.
Out of the question.
Which meant Beatrice knew what she needed to do.
She leaned forward onto the rickety table, lifting her gaze from beneath the hood of her cloak, despising herself. “Yes, well, I’m journeying for the festival myself,” she said. “You see, I’m Beatrice of the Four.”
The innkeeper snorted.
“Heard that one before,” the woman replied, sounding grimly glad for the humor she found in Beatrice’s entirely honest proclamation. Beatrice now deeply wished she’d not flung the copy of Mythria Magazine into the woods. The innkeeper did not even look up from the bedsheet she was magicking stains out of.
Incredible advertisement for your inn, Beatrice could not help thinking. They could change the sign out front. The Inn of the Spotty Sheets. Of course, she knew she would prefer sleeping in that suspiciously stained bedding over sleeping beneath Clare’s cloak with his arm as her pillow and his chest as . . .
She shook her head with vengeance.
“Maybe it’ll work on someone in the dining room and they’ll offer you their room,” the innkeeper went on, jutting her chin in the direction of the loud room off the lobby, where guests clamored and the worn wooden floorboards were damp with drink. “If not, I recommend getting a table in the tavern. We won’t kick you out come midnight if you want to sleep on a bench, but I’ll warn you—the rats hate cuddling.”
While she waved on the person behind Beatrice in line, Beatrice could only gape in horrified silence.
Wood for her pillow, the scent of stale mead filling her nose while she struggled to sleep . . .
Or the calm of night, the lullaby of the forest quiet, with only the company of the man she used to love . . .
Rats it was, then!
Reluctantly leaving the line, Beatrice found her way into the tavern. She was no stranger to the raucousness of rooms like this one. Beatrice’s childhood was pockmarked with unsupervised stretches in strange locales while her parents sold their wares. Her later youth included sneaking from her family’s home to carouse with visitors at her village’s seedier waypoints. She loved the voyagers’ stories, their daring . . . how wide their worlds were.
On her quest with the Four, nights of journeying had led them on occasion into roadside refuges, though with Galwell’s financial resources—not to mention his natural charm—the nights never ended with sleepless hours on unyielding wood.
Everything is worse now, isn’t it? she could not help reminding herself.
She needed no further reminding when she found Clare seated at one end of the room, steaming bowls of delectable stew in front of him.
He pushed one toward her when she sat across from him, their knees inescapably close in the cramped booth.
“It’s—” He paused, like he was wrestling with himself. “Your favorite,” he muscled on. “Honeyspiced pigeon.”
In no mood for his politeness or for contemplating its reason, Beatrice slid the bowl carelessly to the side. “My tastes have changed,” she informed him. While the statement was not untrue, its relevance to the present situation was. She loved honeyspiced pigeon stew.
Clare shrugged and dug in. While Beatrice reached for the wooden jug of wine, Clare watched, new wariness clinging in his eyes.
“Don’t tell me Clare Grandhart gave up drinking,” she chided him, enjoying once more the indulgence of mocking him. “Do the alleyways of Mythria finally know peace from your late-night inebriation and urinations?”
Her delight dampened like the floorboards of the crowded, mead-smelling room when Clare did not scowl, or retort, or roll his eyes. He did nothing in the manner of how rough men were supposed to respond when you insulted them. “I wish I could drink the way I used to,” he conceded while spooning his warm, lightly sweetened, zesty—all right, she very much wanted some stew. Damn his generosity. “I’m not a young man anymore, though,” he went on.
“No, I suppose you’re not,” she replied with good cheer.
When he exhaled in frustration, she hid her victorious smirk in her goblet. He’d clearly determined to be “gentlemanly” toward her, she’d noticed. Well, she would not make it easy for him. Wherever his unusual modesty was coming from, she was determined to dispel his every false pleasantry. It would be her game for the evening! Like Ogre’s Chess, if Beatrice found Ogre’s Chess fun.
Why should I do otherwise? she heard herself wonder with viciousness she’d never brought to Ogre’s Chess. Clare, she remembered, was not just her unlikely journeying companion, not just the mismatched outlaw who’d recognized her.
He’d hurt her. Sneaking out after their first night together was nothing compared to what he’d done after Galwell’s funeral. How deeply he had wounded her in her darkest days.
Oh, she knew he blamed her. It didn’t matter. Ghosts, it didn’t even matter if he was right. When pain was the only prize one had, one clung on to it stubbornly. Clare had wounded her in the very depths of her confusion, her loneliness, her misery.
It was enough. She didn’t need to question or second-guess. She would never forgive him—she, who had endless practice in never forgiving.
Clare composed himself with his next mouthful of stew while she glared.
“I’m sorry you’re going through a rough time,” he said.
No. Ghosts no. Pleasantry, she could spurn. With resentment, she could spar. Pity, however? Out. Of. The. Question.
“A rough time indeed,” she replied hotly. “Stuck in a tavern with you and no rooms for the night.”
Clare held on to the upper hand. Casually he waved off the problem of their lodging. “I meant with respect to your divorce,” he replied evenly, leaving her fuming. Nightwalker shrieks were preferable to him speaking with equanimity. “You’re clearly taking it hard,” he commented.
“I am not!”
He glanced up. She could not decide whether she liked the flicker of humor in his eyes. It did not feel exactly like claiming Ogre’s Chess pieces.
“You’re halfway to drunk on an empty stomach,” he observed. “Not two hours ago you were in a wagon-share smelling of gryphon shank. You recently crashed your ex-husband’s banquet in a bathing robe and mismatched boots.”
She fumed. She’d hoped he hadn’t noticed the boots.
“For your information, Clare,” she replied, “I’ve never been happier.”
Her companion made no reply, instead only raising one eyebrow in challenge. He was goading her, the way she’d watched him deceptively draw opponents into fights he would win. She knew she should ignore him—but she refused to let Clare Grandhart think she regretted a single one of her choices over the past ten years. Points of pride were exceedingly few in Beatrice no-longer-de-Noughton’s personal ledger. She needed to hoard them where she could.
“Divorce was necessary,” she heard herself retort, “and happy. He’d long since stopped pleasing me in the bedroom, and I feel I’ve experienced everything there is to experience in nobility. I was”—she’d started enjoying the honesty now, not to mention the haughtiness—“bored.”
Now Clare smiled. His crooked smile, one she shouldn’t imagine kissing, lips spiced with honey—
“Robert didn’t satisfy you sexually, then,” he remarked.
“He was better than some.”
Clare’s smile didn’t change. The doubtfulness in his eyes flickered like fire on winter nights. “Not better than all, of course.”
She held his gaze. “Asking about anyone in particular?”
With calloused fingers, he cracked his knuckles. “I’ve no doubt one night stands above the others in your memory.”
I’ve no doubt. He was putting on gentility even now, playing with diction. It pissed her off, making her want to strike him off-kilter. Forget Ogre’s Chess. They were jousting on dragons. She pretended to consider, like she needed to sift through dozens of unforgettable nights of lovemaking.
Of course, she didn’t. There was one night she could never forget, pleasures lingering in her memory in vivid detail even without her head magic gifts. Her not-really-one-night stand with Clare. In the days following, on the Four’s quest, they had only ever worked up to kissing, once, before their final confrontation with the forces of darkness. In the meantime, had she wished for other nights like their first?
Well . . . she would never say. Like she would never confess he’d given her the greatest night of her life.
“Hard to say,” she demurred. “I didn’t know what I wanted in the bedroom until more recently. My youthful indiscretions were . . . ungainly.”
Crack. Clare did violence to his next knuckle.
It delighted her. She was consuming him in fire now. Was he imagining the endless possibilities of what she wanted in the bedroom? Was he remembering how she sounded when she wanted them? Was he wrestling with the idea—a lie, of course—that others had given them to her, instead of him?
“I could have told you what you wanted, Beatrice,” he replied. “I knew very well what you liked.”
She flushed, shocked. Insinuation was not the same as invoking their history outright.
Quickly, she felt foolish. How often had she watched Clare outspar opponents with unconventional strikes? She could recall several one-eyed gnarlivores who’d learned the lesson she just did. She reached for the stew, looking to end the inane exchange here.
It was the wrong move. Clare smirked.
“I reckon not all of your tastes have changed,” he said, nodding at the stew.
His words themselves flustered her like not even his crowing comment could. I reckon. No noble ever used the rough slang. While his pretend politesse enraged her, she hated how the reemergence of his roguish accent affected her in . . . other ways.
She offered him only silence, congratulating herself on her wisdom. Ignoring him watching her in victory, she cast her eyes elsewhere—
Only for them to land on a voluptuous woman with raven hair.
Clare could read the moment disturbance entered his dinner companion’s demeanor. He sat up straighter.
“Vandra Ravenfall is here,” she said, speaking quietly and clearly, her focus never leaving the assassin.
He did not raise the alarm, reacting with perfect calm. “Where?” He set his goblet down, carefully not following her gaze.
“At the bar, on my right,” she replied.
“Armed?”
“Can’t see from here, but—”
As it happened, they finished the final words in unison.
“Assume she is.”
The unintentional harmony grated on Beatrice’s ears. She frowned—until Vandra headed their way, carrying a pitcher of drink. “She’s going to walk right past us,” Beatrice observed, urgency replacing her irritation.
Relying on an old practice of theirs, she reached out, placing her hand on Clare’s knee under the narrow table. She did not know what unnerved her more, the readiness of the instinct or the heat rushing into her with the contact. With just the lightest of pressure, she could feel how muscular his leg was.
His eyes locked on hers. He nodded.
When Vandra was a step away from them, she lifted her hand from his leg with reluctance she did not enjoy recognizing. Clare sprung quickly from his seat, trusting Beatrice’s timing completely. Before he could have seen Vandra for himself, he had his dinner knife raised to the woman’s throat in one smooth motion.
“Speak your purpose, assassin,” he commanded.
Vandra Ravenfall did not look intimidated. Nor did she look surprised to find herself under Clare’s knife. She did look well, frustratingly. How had her skin lost none of its radiance, her figure none of its definition?
“Clare Grandhart,” she stated pleasantly. “You know, I really must thank you. Your ale is my favorite. I order it by the case.”
Clare didn’t release her, although Beatrice could tell the compliment pleased him. Of course Clare had slapped his likeness on an overpriced line of ale. It was called something ridiculous like Hero’s Reward. Just one of his many sponsorships over the decade.
“I’ve been a fan of your work as well,” Clare replied coolly, not that anyone in the tavern was paying them a moment’s notice. Scuffles and brawls were practically on the menu in places like these. “The disappearance of Archibald the Limb-Cleaver had you written all over it,” Clare went on.
Vandra grinned, delighted. “That was a fun one. Many fond memories. I figure it may be relevant to mention at this particular moment, though, that I’ve given up killing for contract.”
Clare exchanged a look with Beatrice. They’d learned better than to trust Vandra Ravenfall on their quest to save the realm after the first time she’d lied to upset their plans.
“You expect us to believe you’re no longer an assassin, and yet you just happen to be at the same inn as two of your former marks?” Beatrice asked.
Vandra nodded eagerly, paying no mind to the knife’s edge jutting into her skin. “It’s a perfectly logical coincidence! See, I’m here on behalf of the queen, escorting a guest of hers to Queendom. I imagine the palace is your destination as well. As this is the main road to Queendom.”
“Who are you escorting?” Clare didn’t take his eyes off the assassin to look around the room.
“Funny you should ask.” Vandra’s voice lowered just slightly, delighting in the drama. She had been an assassin for fifteen years, after all—the instincts didn’t die as easily as her targets. “An old friend of yours.”
Beatrice’s breath stilled in her lungs. She felt trapped, with danger closing in. Terror flooded her system, sharper than when she’d once awoken in the night bound in enemy hands and with her allies beaten and unconscious.
No. Not Elowen.
She couldn’t face her former friend. Not after their fight, the funeral, Galwell. Everything. When she’d agreed to come to this wedding, she never thought Elowen would descend from her home in the trees for it. She’d been counting on Elowen’s reclusive bitterness to shield Beatrice from her own shame.
Before Beatrice could run or hide or do some other cowardly action befitting the circumstances, Elowen True herself stepped forward from the room’s plentiful shadows, seeking her traveling companion and finding her under Clare’s dinner knife.
