The books had gone halfway towards filling it, and normally drink would top up the rest, helping me sleep.
But it turned out I couldn’t get drunk anymore, as the half empty decanter attested to. This magic was stopping the alcohol. Had to be. I didn’t feel the slightest bit fuzzy. It certainly hadn’t silenced the memories that came now I was alone.
Losing control of my body as I shook and stumbled through Riverton Palace, poison creeping along my veins. The pain. The numbness in my fingers. The world turning grey and fading in and out of existence.
And underlining it all—the knowledge that the same poison lingered in my system, ready to claim my life if Bastian forgot to come and give me the antidote.
It was a week since the debriefing and I’d barely seen him. Every day I left a note to remind him about the antidote. Dutifully, he would appear while I was in the middle of eating lunch （invariably while my mouth was full）， touch my wrist, then disappear before I had a chance to say a word.
Aside from the servants, that was the only time I saw another soul. I tried to speak to them. One of the women who brought me meals had caramel-coloured hair like Ella’s. I’d hoped she might have something of her personality. I’d been disappointed.
There was only one Ella.
This woman was polite and answered some questions but deflected most. The other servants were the same.
The only other face I saw was in the mirror, and I didn’t recognise that woman anymore. She hadn’t even summoned much of a smile when a message had arrived from Elthea telling me to come for an appointment tomorrow.
Instead, I’d found people in the books on his shelves—or their facsimiles, at least. Good enough to quiet my mind. They carried me on their adventures, a silent observer sitting on their shoulder, sifting through their thoughts, seeing patterns and experiences I recognised, even though I’d never been in the same situations. They saved me from my loneliness. For a while.
Many of the stories were in Albionic, thankfully. But I finished those too quickly. One was in Frankish—the first chapter was a struggle, like pushing a wheelbarrow with a rusted axle. With perseverance, it wore off, though, and I found myself enjoying the tale of a girl who dressed as a boy in order to join the ranks of the king’s famous guard. But it was over too soon.
A handful of the books were in a script I couldn’t make head nor tail of—it used a slashing alphabet I’d never seen before. Several were in a language that wasn’t quite Latium. The verb declensions were completely different—much simpler, thankfully—but most vocabulary seemed the same. Perhaps a precursor? Still, it was close enough for me to understand, and I read those books falteringly.
I’d finished the last one just after dinner.
And now I was alone.
For a while I’d paced, trying to distract my mind with movement, but I found myself picking at the seams of my gloves.
So, here I sat, a useless sack of bones.
A fucking gloomy sack of bones.
I downed the rest of my drink, barely tasting it, and poured another.
He couldn’t mean to keep me locked in here forever, could he? I tried to ask when he appeared at lunchtime, but I’d barely managed two words before he disappeared again.
Of course. He had work to do.
Maybe he’d been in such a rush, he’d forgotten to lock the door.
I lurched to my feet, not even swaying despite how much I’d drunk. Once I reached the antechamber, I held my breath and tried the door.
Still locked. And magically, so my rudimentary lock picking skills were a waste of time. （I’d broken a few hairpins finding that out.）
I needed…
I needed something. Wringing my hands, I returned to the settee and threw myself onto it.
Answers. Something to do. A conversation, even. Anything but sitting here waiting to die from that changeling’s poison.
If I stayed up late enough, I would catch Bastian.
So, I commanded the fae lights to dim and sat in the gathering darkness with his brandy and waited.
I was drifting off when the door opened hours later. Head bowed, eyes aglow, Bastian slipped inside without calling for the lights, but I could see him in the odd pinkish glow of the banked fire. I found my tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth.
It had worked. He hadn’t seen me—hadn’t bothered to look because he didn’t expect me to be awake.
And because he was so used to his rooms being his sanctuary.
I grimaced as all the words I’d planned fled.
He was almost at the door when I looked up from my drink and found him peeling off his shirt. Across his flesh, the sinuous curves of an inked snake carved their way across his shoulders and down his back. The firelight picked out flecks of light in its darkness. Were they stars?
I wasn’t meant to be ogling his body. This was an ambush.
“You missed a rule in your list.” My voice cut through the quiet. “The one where I’m not allowed to leave your rooms.”
He straightened and turned, eyebrows tight together as he called for the fae lights to brighten in their sconces. “What are you doing up?” His gaze landed on the empty decanter. The look he shot me pierced, not even remotely softened by the alcohol. “Drinking?”
I snorted at the accusation in his tone. “You locked me in your rooms. The guards at the door won’t let me leave. What did you expect me to do?”
He stiffened, a wince adding to the darkness around his eyes. “There are plenty of books—”
“I’ve read them all.” I waved my hand. “Except for the ones in that strange alphabet that looks like knife slashes.”
His eyebrows rose. “How did you read them so quickly? And the—”
“It’s been a week, Bastian.”
Blinking, he raked a hand through his hair, gaze skipping across the thick carpet as though reckoning the days. “Shit. I… I wasn’t fully prepared for you to wake when you did, and I hadn’t considered that you’d be left here without entertainment. That being said, drinking is not the answer.”
The breath left me in a loud huff of disbelief. Not quite a laugh, but close. “Business Bastian is lecturing me.” Because that was how he sounded—all formal and judgemental. I stood, hands on hips. “The man who dropped me in the middle of a palace and fucked off for a week is lecturing me. That’s bloody rich.”
His jaw rippled, and I could see the effort it took to lower his squared shoulders. “Go to bed, Kat. You’re drunk.”
“No. I’m not. That’s the problem—I can’t get drunk, but I can still get a lecture from Business Bastian, it seems.” I smiled and spread my hands. “Please continue. Tell me what it is I’m supposed to do while locked in your rooms. If drink isn’t the answer, what is?”
His eyelids fluttered and he drew a breath, but no words came.
Part of me ached at the sight of the dark rings around his eyes and the way his shadows barely summoned more than a ripple around his feet. He was exhausted.
But so was I.
Exhausted and alone and lost.
So fucking lost.
My eyes burned as I squeezed my hands into useless fists. “What do you want me to do, Bastian? I have no purpose here. Nothing to do. No one to speak to. You’ve clearly ordered the servants not to talk to me.”