Chapter 26 - Reap and Sow

When Eda finally dared to stop in a dark close between buildings, Kit swooped down and transformed. She knew it without looking, familiar by now with that gentle whisper heralding the change.

“Eda.”

She did not turn. Instead, she watched the tavern across the street. Men roared with laughter and jostled each other beneath torchlight. A frazzled-looking barmaid came out with two large steins, ignoring the whistles with practiced ease. Eda had always regarded such scenes with scorn. To work hard for your coin only to give it to the alehouses seemed foolish and vaguely sad. Now she understood why. Life was hard. For those unable to afford better diversions, being drunk made for a passing imitation of happiness.

At least ale was cheap.

“Can demons get drunk?”

“Eda.”

“You lot drink better stuff than watered-down ale, I imagine. Do you—”

He caught her wrist and spun her to face him. Kit was little more than a pair of glowing eyes in the dark, but they burned. He cupped her face.

Eda’s mouth ran dry.

“Who hit you?” Kit’s voice rang deep and cold as a winter lake. His thumb traced her red cheek, lip curling as though he wanted to bite something. She thought she’d seen him angry, but realized now that perhaps she never had. He was deathly still.

“It rhymes with bane.”

Fingertips twitched upon her face. “Tell me what happened,” he said after a short pause. “I came back to find fiends ripping apart the bishop’s men. What did he say to you? What did Baelion say?”

Eda scowled. “You were there.”

“You’re angry.”

“Why would I be?”

“Because I did not save you.”

“I didn’t need saving.”

“So it seems. Masterful, really, how you talked your way out of Tenelle’s clutches.”

“And if it hadn’t worked?”

Would you have saved me, then?

His silence was deafening. Eda fought to subdue a rush of embarrassment. Did he pity her? Think her some simpering maiden pining for her knight? Neither of them played the part well, and she refused to care if Kit did not.

Eda couldn’t expect him to place her life above his own. It didn’t make it hurt any less. “I understand. You won’t face your brother, and why would you? You’re under no obligation to protect me.” She looked away. “I was unsure if you were coming back is all.”

He was mute for a short eternity. Then, tentative, he said, “I went to Abelard as planned. He sent a courier to alert Tenelle. I followed to make sure the message found her. But the boy was turned away at the gates. The commander had already left with a contingent of Blades. I flew to the gardens at once, but the fiends and the Blades were already skirmishing. Baelion was there. I thought it best to…” He fell quiet. Brushed her cloak with a knuckle, as one might extend a hand to a jumpy dog. “I did not abandon you. I would not.”

There was no Pact binding them, and Kit’s pledge was only as strong as his inclination. But perhaps it did not matter. His being here at all is more than I could hope for.

Eda mustered a weak smile. “That ring of yours seemed to do the trick. No one knew you were there. Wish you had a spare, though. I lost my mantle.”

Kit crowded her until he was all she could see. “Tell me what happened.”

Eda recounted how the bishop had found her, mocked her, struck her. Kit’s expression devolved into a fierce, menacing look that stood her hair on end. She described how Mr. Night revealed himself and promised to give her the chance to pay off her debt.

“He said that he could smell you on me. Do all demons have such refined senses?”

At this, Kit’s nostrils flared. The air around him rippled ominously. “For the most part.”

“Is he really so strong? Is that why you won’t face him?”

“I could never defeat him growing up.” His lips thinned.

“But you’re grown now.”

“And risk my life? For what? I don’t care about the dukedom.”

Eda bit her cheek. “I suppose you’re right. Little point, if you’ve nothing worth fighting for.”

He stared at her.

Eda looked down, playing with the hem of her cloak. She was so tired. “We should head back. It’s a long walk, and your horse shape is too conspicuous.”

Kit gathered himself. “Piss on that. You look ready to drop. We’ll rest here tonight.”

She blinked and looked around. “Here?”

“Yes, right there in the gutter! Of course not, you little heathen. I’ll find us somewhere. It’s about time we had better sleeping quarters. My hair never falls right if I don’t sleep with silk pillows.”

“How brave you’ve been.”

“Quite. Come on, let’s window-shop.”

When Kit said window-shop, it turned out he meant it literally.

Eda waited on the cobbles as her demonic companion scaled walls and leaped between sloping roofs, peering without shame into windows. She wasn’t sure how he could see much through crown glass and greased paper, but when he told her with delight that a young couple was shagging in one particular room, she had to assume he saw well enough.

Eda lacked the energy to protest. Her body felt heavy on her bones, like a wet coat. Her knees ached where the bishop’s men had thrown her down. Her cheek and scalp stung. If Kit meant for them to squat in some vacant house, she was past the point of caring. Breaking and entering would just be another drop in the bucket of her misdeeds.

He dropped beside her, smug. “This will do.”

She leaned back to assess the two-storied building, all proud gables and mullioned windows. Here on the border between Cannington and neighboring Millstead, the streets were full of well-kept tradesmen’s houses and storefronts catering to wealthy patrons. Affluent but not so wide and open as the rich inner borough.

Kit had chosen the finest house on the street, unsurprisingly. It boasted a little front courtyard with honeysuckle climbing toward a wooden balcony. She allowed him to gather her in his arms and leap onto it, where he’d already forced the double doors open.

Inside, it was just as extravagant as Kit’s old apartment. Certainly less cluttered, she thought wryly. Rakeshi carpets and painted wall hangings. A hearth with cast-iron firebacks beneath a mounted boar head. An ornamental crossbow, taking pride of place beside the main door.

They were in someone’s bedchamber, she realized. Judging by the fine layer of dust over the embroidered chairs and walnut sideboard, it had been vacant for a while. “There’s really no one here?”

“No. I would have heard them. Perhaps the master of the house has taken his retinue with him to the country. It is deer season.”

The things Kit knew about her world never failed to surprise her. Eda had no knowledge of country pursuits, nor anything the noblefolk did in their spare time.

She ran her hand over the bed. It was a handsome thing, styled with spiraling oak posts at each corner. A decorated cover adorned the soft furnishings in shades of green and bronze: hounds chasing a fox through a wide meadow, mouths wide and hungry.

She shivered. “Is this the only bed?”

“Don’t fret. I’ve no dastardly plan to cozy up to you in the middle of the night.” He paused. “Unless you want me to.”

What would he do, she wondered, if I said yes? “But where will you—”

“There must be a servants’ room in a house like this, unless they make them sleep in the cellar or pantry. In which case I’m compelled to duel you for the right to the bed. My hair has suffered enough.”

Eda rubbed her wrist. The phantom sensation of digging rope still lingered. “Can you…would it be all right if you stayed here?” She grimaced at herself and pretended to study the bedcover. Every night since her life had been upended, she’d at least found rest on the Oriana: warm and cozy-small with Robin and Old Bastard nearby. Eda didn’t want to be alone, here in this stranger’s big dark house. “You don’t have to—”

“I will stay.”

She turned, startled to find him right behind her. “Oh. All right. You can…we can share the bed. If”—she pointed at his suddenly bright expression—“you stay on top of the covers.”

“Dull.”

Eda readied herself for sleep while Kit went about lighting the cold hearth. Flames grew. Warm light flickered. She was grimy, her hair a wild tangle, but she did not care. Tiredness weighed her down like a millstone. Eda merely took off her boots and cloak—the cloak Kit had bought her—and offered it to him as she patted down the dusty bedcover. “In case you get cold.”

He studied the cloak with mute surprise. A warm expression crinkled the corners of his eyes. “Demon, darling. I run hot.”

“Ah. Right.”

Eda slipped beneath the down covers and pulled them to her nose in embarrassment. Kit took the cloak and laid it over her feet in an oddly tender gesture. Then he leaped onto the bed, sending her bouncing.

“Careful!”

“What?”

“You’ll break it!”

“I’m sure it could stand up to far more vigorous exploits than that.”

Perhaps it was exhaustion. Perhaps it was only that his lascivious teasing made her feel at ease. Whatever the reason, Eda chuckled, then began laughing in earnest. She pressed the bedcover over her face, shoulders shaking with mirth.

“Liked that, did you?” He leaned over and peeled back the cover to grin at her rosy cheeks. “How about this—have you considered the debauched acts that poor boar over there must have been subjected to? Imagine it! You’re snuffling about in the dirt, minding your own business, when all of a sudden someone shoots you and puts you on their wall, and now you have to watch some pasty hunter with a small cock fail to pleasure a lover—”

Eda squeaked and covered her face, laughing. “Stop it! You—why would you assume he has a small…”

“Darling, please. Did you see the size of that crossbow?” He whispered, in all seriousness, “The man is compensating for something.”

Eda laughed until tears fell. Kit snickered. Eventually she calmed, and they lay there side by side, an easy silence falling soft as snow between them. She stared at the timbers overhead. The crackle of the fire and the petrichor scent of him lulled her fast into drowsiness.

Blindly, Eda reached for Kit’s hand. Heard his tiny inhale of surprise.

His fingers curled around hers, tight and covetous. “Get some sleep.”

She tried. For all of two minutes. “Kit,” she whispered.

“Eda.”

“Tell me what mir’han means.”

He stopped breathing. She thought he would not answer, until he did. “It is…a term of endearment.”

“The sort between family and friends?”

Careful.

“No. It—” He cut himself off. Swallowed. “Do not think on it. Sleep now, darling.”

With his palm warming hers, doing so was easy as breathing.