She went to step forward, tangled in the bottom of the robe. I lunged, catching her in my arms before she could go toppling head-first onto the ground. Phil side-eyed me as he chomped on clumps of yellowed grass.
Her face was too pale. Her lips almost as white as the shift peeking from beneath the black robes. “Dammit, Aveen. When was the last time you had food?” I’d left plenty, hadn’t I? Did she not like what I’d left for her? No, no. That didn’t make sense. She’d eaten the same at the castle, she must like it. The problem was that this stubborn woman had no sense of self-preservation.
I settled her on the sofa, wishing like hell I’d bought something nicer than the stained brown piece of furniture falling apart in front of the fireplace.
I organized a meal as best I could with the bits Marcus had left: bread, ham, cheese. With no coffee table, I was forced to place her plate on a rickety old chair.
When I told her to eat, she tore off a bit of bread and slipped it between her pale lips with dirty fingers.
She was in desperate need of a bath. I’d bought a tub, hadn’t I? If not, we could go down to the sea. I thought of the last time we’d gone to the sea together. The way she’d felt wrapped around me, clinging to me as if I was worth her time instead of pushing me away as she should’ve.
“I shouldn’t be here,” I said to myself as much as to her. “I could spin out at any moment.”
She swallowed her bite, toying with the next. “Does it happen often?”
“She leaves me alone as long as I don’t break the rules.”Or if she wanted me to murder someone on her behalf. But that was a conversation for never.
“We need to get back your heart.”
Weneeded to forget about my missing heart and move on. I told Aveen she was out of her feckin’ mind and started for the room full of junk that Marcus had insisted was “still good,” moving shite around to free the copper tub and drag it into the living room.
Now all I had to do was fill it up.
I snagged a bucket from the back wall and went outside to the well.
Phil stepped in my path, and every time I tried to step around him, he shifted so that I couldn’t. “If you don’t move, I’ll eat you for dinner.”
I swore the thing rolled its eyes before finally lumbering away.
I filled the bucket and hauled it inside, spilling more than half of it on the way. First, I filled the kettle and lit the hob, then dumped what remained into the bottom of the tub. Over and over and over again, outside and inside, filling and dumping, the monotony of it allowing my mind to return to that courtroom. The jail cell.
It’s over now.She’s safe.
For tonight, maybe.
The same could not be said for tomorrow, or the day after that, or the day after that. It wasn’t just the Queen we had to fear. Marcus’s son had died in a fishing accident, swept out to sea and never heard from again. What if Aveen went swimming and met a rogue wave? A poisonous weaver fish? A bloodthirsty merrow?
What if she got a leak in the ceiling and tried to climb onto the roof and slipped and broke her neck? What if she came out to fetch some water and Phil the devil-goat rammed her in the arse and she fell into the well and drowned?
I knew I was reaching, but the fact remained: Aveen was human. Her life was as fragile as a glass bauble. It wasn’t a matter ofifshe would die but a matter of when.
I shoved the thoughts aside, staring down at the now-full tub.
Aveen stuck her hand in, pulling it out just as quickly. “It’s bloody freezing.”
That’s because it came straight from the well, beautiful. “That’s what this is for,” I said, removing the kettle from the hob. A bit of boiling water, and she’d be set.
“That tiny kettle won’t make a blind bit of difference to this much water.”
Sure enough, when I added the kettle, the water still felt as cold as ever. It’d take all night to heat the feckin’ thing. “How the hell was I supposed to know that?”
“Haven’t you ever drawn a bath before?”
“I’ve never needed to.” Because I wasn’t a feckin’ peasant. I could shift a bath of my own or steal my brother’s. Why the hell would I traipse in and out of the castle to fill it by hand?
“Just do your little flicky thing and warm it up.”
I took great offense at her use of the term. “My little flicky thing?”