Kinked (Elder Races, #6)(68)

Aryal was silent for a while. She said, “If Galya reaches the passageway, you’re setting them up for a bad confrontation.”

“They don’t have to engage. They can let her go, and she can be tracked down to wherever she lives in Russia.” Tired of the dryness of the cured meat, he set it aside and reached for a wheel of cheese and a small jar of olives, set with a honeycomb wax seal. “Besides,” he said, “we’re not going to let her reach the passageway.”

He sliced off a piece of cheese and handed it to her, then sliced off some for himself and broke open the jar of olives. As she chewed, Aryal said, “I want one of these bars.”

He didn’t understand that. He hadn’t brought any food that came in bars. “What?”

The indirect moonlight from the single window was so faint, for many races the cell would be in total darkness, but his eyes were especially suited to the night. He saw her gesture to the cell door that stood wide open. “These bars. I want one of them with the dampening spell still on it so I can stab her with it.”

His eyebrows rose as he considered that. “That’s actually an awesome idea,” he said. “Unfortunately, the cells are so well constructed that I don’t think it’s feasible. We’d need a blacksmith, and by the time the smith separated one of the bars, probably the dampening spell would be broken.”

“A girl can dream, you know,” she said. She had sounded bad before, and now she sounded utterly exhausted. “Give me that bottle again.”

He passed it over to her. “So, who do you love?”

She drank from the bottle and wiped her mouth. “Excuse me?”

“Name somebody you love.”

“Why?” She sounded baffled.

Impulse was driving him, and he didn’t want to try to explain it. “Just because,” he said. “You’re friends with Niniane. Do you love her?”

“Ye-es.” Now she sounded cautious.

“Suppose Niniane was in trouble, and it was bad.” She nudged his arm with the bottle and, surprised she offered, he took it and drank. “Suppose,” he said, “someone Powerful that you didn’t know had threatened her.”

“Are you telling me that you know some plot against Niniane?” she asked suspiciously. “And you’re only just now bringing it up?”

“No! I’m creating a hypothetical scenario.”

“I’m back to ‘why’ again.” She wrapped the tablecloth around her shoulders and lay down. “But go on.”

He felt filthy and the cat in him was offended, but there was nothing to be done about it for the moment. He put the folded tablecloth he’d kept for himself on the floor to use as padding for his naked back. Then he lay down on it beside Aryal and stared at the ceiling.

“Suppose,” he whispered, “you tried to help your friend by trapping the person who threatened her. And suppose your plan backfired, and you ended up hurting both of them. What would you do?”

She coughed out a chuckle. “Feel bad. Is this about what happened when you decided to mend the error of your ways and gave up smuggling?”

The stone floor made a wretched bed. The only way he could be more uncomfortable was if he were still bleeding. He said, “Yep.”

Aside from the quiet sounds of the Elves settling to sleep, silence pressed down on them. Aryal whispered, “What did you do, Quentin?”

He closed his eyes. “When Dragos went after Pia last year, and the Elves shot him with the poisoned arrow, did you know that Pia had been staying at my house at Folly Beach?” She didn’t say anything. She didn’t even appear to be breathing. He continued, “I traded the information to Urien in exchange for his promise to let Pia go. Urien didn’t keep his end of the bargain.”

After a moment, she said, “Why the f*ck did you tell me that now, when I’m so tired I can hardly breathe?”

Aside from exasperation, she also sounded genuinely mystified. He muttered, “I figured that would be a good thing. Less opportunity for you to go ballistic before you had a chance to think.”

More time passed. She whispered, “You manipulative bastard. Why did you tell me at all? You didn’t have to. Nobody is bothering to ask questions about that anymore. You got away with it.”

“Nobody else knew about it. That doesn’t mean I got away with anything.” He rested a forearm over his eyes.

She turned onto her side until she was facing him. “It’s been eating away at you all this time.”

“Kinda,” he muttered.

She smacked him on the shoulder with the back of her hand, and he jumped. “What the hell, Quentin?” she said between her teeth. “Did I not just get done telling you the other day that I would go after your ass if you did anything to hurt anyone I cared about? Did you really make the very best decision you could have made after hearing someone say something like that to you?”

He couldn’t help himself and started to smile. “What are you going to do about it?”

She smacked him again. “I don’t know. I can’t believe you made me mad at you after being so—so nice to me today. What is wrong with you?”

“There’s the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question. I mean that literally. You figure out what’s wrong with me, and I’ll pay you sixty-four thousand dollars.” He rolled onto his side to face her. She jerked her tablecloth closer around her shoulders, muttering under her breath. He stroked her hair, and she froze. Somehow the darkness made it easier for him to admit, “It sickens me to think I hurt Pia the way I did, and I still don’t like Dragos, but I’m growing to respect him. I’m sorry I did it.”