“Leith,” I said, trying hard to make my voice stern. God-dammit. Why couldn’t he have been an annoying jerk like most of my other would-be suitors? Why did he have to be a nice guy? With great effort, I tried to let him down easy instead of in my usual harsh way. “I meant it: I like you. But that’s it. I value your help and your friendship, but I’m not leaving Kiyo.”
“But I love you.” It was weak and plaintive.
I shook my head. “I’m sorry.”
His face fell, and he turned away, wrapped in despair. He started to walk toward the door and then abruptly turned, eyes alight once more. “If things end between you and the kitsune…then I’d be next in line, right?”
“Next in line? Er, well…” Why couldn’t I just lie and say yes? Or why not use a “I don’t want to ruin our friendship” kind of crap line? “I don’t think so, Leith. I just don’t think I could ever feel that way about you.”
Leith stared at me wide-eyed for several moments, and then at last, his features tightened. “I see. I’m sorry to have taken your time, your majesty. Your workers in Westoria understand my task and should no longer require my help.” He gave a small, polite bow and then hurried out the door.
“Leith…” I took a few steps forward, my stomach sinking. I felt horrible. I knew he’d had a crush on me, but I hadn’t thought it was much more than the usual Otherworldly attractions I experienced. His face at the end there had broken my heart. I hadn’t wanted to hurt him, particularly after all he’d done for me.
Dejected, I returned to my bedroom and ordered wine sent up. It arrived in a jewel-encrusted pitcher, complete with a heavy golden goblet. Had to love gentry room service. I declined any requests to see anyone until Kiyo arrived. I sat down on the floor, leaning against the bed and wondering how much of the wine I could get through before he arrived.
To my surprise, all of it.
I had no clock there but was pretty sure more than two hours had passed. I’d drunk goblet after goblet, thinking about Jasmine, Leith, and Art-and finding no resolution for any of them. I was staring at the bottom of the empty pitcher, pondering the time, when I heard a soft knock at my door. Finally!
I stood up and felt the world sway around me. I gripped the bed for support. “Kiyo?” But it wasn’t him. It was Shaya.
Like Rurik, she’d dropped a lot of formalities and didn’t bother with a curtsey. Her face was troubled, and I saw her clever eyes assess me and my drunkenness in a matter of seconds. “I’m sorry to bother you…but a messenger just arrived from the Willow Land.”
The anger I’d been kindling against Kiyo’s tardiness ran cold. “Oh my God. Is he okay?”
Shaya hesitated and then gave a swift nod. “As far as I know, he’s fine. It’s Queen Maiwenn everyone’s concerned about…she’s gone into labor.”
Chapter Fifteen
I stood there for several long seconds, staring at Shaya but not really seeing her.
“Thank you,” I said at last, my voice unnaturally flat even to me.
She hesitated, eyes worried. “Is there…is there anything I can get for you?”
More wine, I thought. But I shook my head. Wine suddenly didn’t seem strong enough. I wanted to go home just then and raid my liquor cabinet, seeking solace in my own home and its bed, not this godforsaken Dark Ages fortress. The wine was going to make transitioning between the worlds harder, though. It wasn’t impossible but would hardly be as smooth as usual. No, it seemed I might be stuck here for a while.
“I need to see Volusian,” I said.
She stepped aside for me, and though I didn’t ask for it, she followed me solicitously as I headed downstairs, down to the keep’s dungeon. It seemed darker and drearier than it had last time, but maybe that was the wine. Jasmine’s cell was easy to spot because four guards stood in the hall outside it. I reached it, and through the bars, I saw Volusian standing in one corner, perfectly still, with his arms crossed over his chest. Jasmine sat as absolutely far from him as she could, her face equal parts fear and sullenness.
“What do you want now?” she snapped. I didn’t even look at her.
“Volusian,” I said. “I have an errand for you. I’ll watch Jasmine while you’re gone.”
Volusian walked forward, passing through the bars and coming to stand in front of me. “No doubt my mistress has a more urgent task.”
“Moderately. I want you to go back to Tucson and bring me the bottle of tequila I keep in my liquor cabinet. And don’t scare Tim.”
Volusian remained motionless in that way of his. “My mistress grows increasingly creative in her ways to torment me.”
“I thought you’d appreciate it.”
“Only in so much as it inspires me to equally creative means to rip you apart when I am able to break free of these bonds and finally destroy you.”
“You see? There’s a silver lining to everything. Now hurry up.”
Volusian vanished. With him gone, Jasmine grew bolder. She hurried to the front of the cell, holding the bronze bars as best she could with her bound hands. “When are you going to let me go?”
I sat down against the hall’s wall, opposite her. I wondered if she’d try any of her stunted magic with me around. “When are you going to stop asking?”
“You’re a real bitch, you know that?”
“Look, little girl,” I growled. “You do not want to mess with me tonight. I’m not in a good mood.”
Jasmine was undeterred. “I can’t believe you’re keeping me in here with that…that thing! That’s just cruel and sadistic.”
“Wow, sadistic’s kind of a big word. I didn’t think you’d stayed in school long enough to learn that kind of vocabulary.”
Her glower darkened. “When I get out, I’m going to kill you.”
“Then you and ‘that thing’ should get along beautifully, seeing as he spends all his time plotting my grisly death too.”
She nodded down to her bound hands. “I can barely feed myself, you know.”
“Barely isn’t the same as can’t.” But I did feel a little bad about that. Was I really going to keep her in cuffs forever? Yet, how could I not? Maybe I should investigate that potion Rurik had told me about. No…that wasn’t right either. I sighed, and spent the next half-hour listening to her alternate between insults and whining. It was better than thinking about Kiyo, though. All the while, I was sobering up, so when Volusian finally appeared and handed me over a full bottle of Jose Cuervo, I gave silent thanks that I’d purchased an extra-large bottle.
“Thanks,” I said, rising to my feet. I pointed to Jasmine’s cell. “Now-back to guard duty.”
I turned around without a second glance, Jasmine’s cries of outrage echoing behind me. Shaya, who had waited silently the whole time, fell in step with me as I walked back upstairs.
“Are you sure there isn’t anything I can do for you?”
I eyed the bottle. “See if you can find some little glasses about this big.” I held my fingers out to the size of a shot glass. “And bring enough for…I don’t know. You, Rurik…hell, anyone who wants to get drunk with me. Even Ysabel.” I was feeling magnanimous tonight. Or, well, at least in a misery-loves-company mood.
Shaya’s face looked more troubled than ever, but I paid it little concern as I walked outside to a small circular courtyard in the castle’s center. This seemed to be a fixture in most gentry holdings. Dorian had a couple. I’d been told that this one had been green in Aeson’s time, filled with lilies and lilacs. Now, it was sandy and gravelly, lined with cacti, mesquite, and even some of the thorn trees that had given the land its name. At least the mesquite scented the air, and I decided one perk of the Otherworld was that those trees always seemed to be in bloom.
I sat down cross-legged in the middle of the courtyard, noticing that someone had started to set stone tiles into it to create a kind of patio area. It hadn’t been there last time, and I wondered if it was Shaya’s doing, just like the patches of grass she kept trying to grow around here. Not waiting for shot glasses, I uncapped the tequila and took a long swig, the strong liquor burning my throat.