Page 39 of The Thief and the Traitor Bride

nine

THE SKY WAS STEELY gray and spitting drizzle when they docked in the Scaelan port, the light fading unceremoniously into evening. Nore stood at the rail and watched the dockworkers descend to unload the ship, searching for the familiarity of her own seal on the cases. Caspian stood next to her, fidgeting with his gloves and shifting his weight.

“Could you stand still?” Nore snapped. “You’re disrupting my focus.”

“There’s nothing to focus on.”

Nore held her tongue. No camaraderie had grown between them since Nore delivered him from his cabin, even though his health had dramatically improved after a night of sleep in a warm room. In fact, Caspian had barely spoken to her at all—this surprised her most, as she expected he would at least seek reason to bicker with her. But he took the rest of his medicine quietly, then dove straight into the information Celestine had provided for him for the mission. Nore felt the questions rising on the tip of her tongue more than once: What is the artifact to you? Have you heard of it before? How do you intend to find it? Why did you agree to do this mission at all? Are the reports true? Can you really just be bought by the highest bidder? Who was that bidder, on that night all those years ago when your blade sank between my ribs, when my life was in your hands—

It was better, Nore decided, not to open the floodgates. To avoid questions entirely. Now, though, Caspian’s silence was grating on her just as much as his sharp tongue ever had.

“Are Scaela and Luthar alike?” Nore asked now, trying to distract him, to ease some of his fidgeting.

“Bitter neighbors, like siblings,” Caspian said, watching as the gangway was secured then stepping with Nore as they moved forward to disembark. “Similar in appearance. Varied in belief.”

“Oh?” Nore asked. But if Caspian had more to add, he didn’t supply it.

She sighed. Nore looked out at Scaela, drinking it in. The working harbor was small, with a larger section clearly being rebuilt, probably as a result of the war. Celestine’s notes had illustrated that this port town, Crudes, had switched hands between Luthar and Scaela more than once, and had been one of the negotiating pieces in the final peace agreement that ended the war, transferring the port back to Scaelan ownership.

Nore had never been at war, had never been threatened for the origin of her birth. She found herself looking at the merchant buildings near the harbor, the houses painted in cheerful pastels that set them apart from the unbreaking gray sea and sky. She wondered if the people here were Scaelan or Luthrite, if they knew, if they cared. If those who did not want to belong to Scaela packed up and moved, or stayed.

It was another question, she realized with some annoyance, she would’ve liked to ask Caspian.

Nore fussed with her pockets, preparing to disembark. She had her paperwork in order, ready to present to the port guard. She gripped the small roller of oil and perfume she kept in her pocket, pulled it out, and removed the cap, preparing to put a small amount on her wrists.

Next to her, Caspian’s head tilted, nose wrinkling. He glanced down at her. “Is that Breton oil?” he asked, glancing at her hands. “For persuasion? Or… no. Charm?”

Nore frowned. “That is none of your business.”

“It is,” he said, catching her hand, “because in an inherent system like Idistra, constructive magic can backfire.” He capped the oil and waved a hand to dissipate the smell. “If a mage or well caught a hint of that, it would have the opposite effect, and you’d end up looking even more untrustworthy if they found the root of it.”

Nore frowned, replacing the oil in her pocket. “But you used to use Breton oil all the time,” she said. “It never fazed you.”

“No,” he agreed, “but I wasn’t in Idistra.” He laid his hands on the railing, looking down at the gangway as they secured it in place before he glanced sidelong at Nore. “Did you steal any of my other tricks?” he asked.

Nore did not respond. The ship horn sounded behind them, signaling it was safe to disembark. Nore was grateful for the natural end to the conversation—perhaps in part because, before she had known of Caspian’s talents as a thief, she never would’ve used artifacts from a different system.

Studying his treachery had, in fact, made her a better spy. And he could never know.

Remembering their roles, she put her arm through his as they made their way off the ship, following the path to the lines for the harbor guard.

“Are we hiring a well?” Caspian murmured in Lindle as they stepped onto shore.

She glanced at him. She hadn’t realized that hiring a well had been an option. “No,” she said. “We’ll be working with an Idistran on another matter; he’s a well, if you need the power.” She hesitated, unsure how much she wanted to reveal to him yet—she knew details of the well who would be meeting them once they were past the guard, but if Caspian ran off to find them himself and left her here, without a way to enter…

Better to distract him. “The magic,” she said. “Do you feel it?”

Caspian sighed. “That’s not how Idistran magic works.” He flexed his hand in his glove. He was pulling away from her as much as one possibly could while being arm in arm.

“You need a well to draw power from. I know that.”

“Yes.”

“But can you still…” Nore searched for words. “When we leave the reach of the Lindle system, I feel it. I try to do a calculation, run through some algorithm that would lead to a result, and find that the math itself fundamentally fails.” She knew she was speaking in abstract terms, but she and Caspian had spent years talking about magic. He would understand exactly what she meant. “Do you feel anything like that? The absence of it, or do you feel the potential there, but unreachable?”

“I feel only irritation at your voice, darling,” Caspian said.

Nore pressed her lips together, annoyed to find she was genuinely hurt by his refusal to engage. She said no more.