“Hungry.” Tes took the bag of dumplings with her as she rounded the counter, putting the boundary between them, if for no other reason than to remind Nero that there was one. “How did you even get in?”
“There are two doors,” he said lightly, though she’d never shown him the second one, tucked like a secret in the back of the shop. “You only spelled the first.”
She swore softly. “Aren’t you clever.”
“If only I had magic,” he mused, “I wouldn’t have to be.”
Nero’s mouth gave a bitter twitch as he said it, as if the world had marked him as lesser for his lack of power. And it would have, if he’d truly been born without an element.
But they both knew he was lying. Tes could see it written in the air around him, the shocking violet of his power, a color so rare it stood out, even against the cluttered threads of the shop. And even if she hadn’t been able to read it there, in his threads, she had seen it once, and only once, in action. He had helped her out of a scrape when she first came to London, and used his power to do it. So she knew, and he knew that she knew, and they both knew well enough to lean into the lie.
“What are you doing here?” she asked, setting the kettle back on the stove and snatching up the mug he’d left on the counter.
Nero spread his arms. “I’m a customer.”
“And you couldn’t wait outside?”
“It was cold in the street.”
“It’s still summer,” she said, lifting Vares to sweep away the mound of seeds.
“It looked like it might rain?” he ventured.
She looked around with a sigh. “Did you steal anything?”
Nero recoiled. “From you? I’d never.” He then proceeded to pluck a dumpling out of the bag, and pop it into his mouth. “Honestly,” he said around the mouthful. “Wow—that’s good—I’m hurt that you’d even ask. But since we’re both here now, I could use your help.”
The trouble with Nero was that she knew he was trouble. He wore it like a brand, from that hapless grin to those green-gold eyes. It was like seeing a trap, and stepping into it anyway.
She just couldn’t help but like him.
Perhaps it was the way he treated her: not like a mark, but a little sister.
She was a little sister—but not his. And if he ever asked, she would have lied and said she was an only child, and her parents had died horrible deaths at sea, so there was no one to miss her and no one who might come looking and that was that.
But Nero didn’t ask. He never asked, because they had an understanding. They were allowed to know each other as they were now, not as they’d been sometime before. Pasts belonged right where they were, so he didn’t ask what a girl her age （not that he knew it） was doing alone in the city, running an often-illegal repair shop, and she didn’t ask him about the magic he pretended not to have, or why he always looked like he’d been on the wrong end of a fight.
Sure, over time, they’d traded small, and largely useless, details. He had a sweet tooth. She lived on strong tea. He had a smile that could charm a shadow into the light. She had a glare that could send it back. They both had a habit of talking to things that weren’t really there, Nero to himself, and Tes to her owl. But the only reason Nero even knew her name was because he made her bet it in a round of Sanct, one letter for every losing hand, and by the time she realized the entire point of the game was to cheat, he had those first three letters, the only ones she used.
“Don’t be cross,” he’d said with a laugh. “It’s only a name.”
But he was wrong. A name was like a strand of hair or a hangnail—something people shed too easily, no concern for where it went. But since opening the shop, she’d seen spells woven with names at the center, curses spun out around syllables, charms folded over letters.
She’d seen names used to bribe, and to threaten.
Seen a man knifed for the name he’d given.
A woman arrested for spitting on the name of the king.
Names had value. And her father taught her never to give a thing away for less than it was worth. Especially something you couldn’t buy back.
On some level, even Nero knew it. After all, he’d given her his first name, or at least, those four letters, N-E-R-O, tossed them out like bits of burning paper on Sel Fera Noche. But he’d never parted with the rest. If there was more, he’d cut it off, cast it away.
He was just Nero.
And she was just Tes.