The Drowned Woods (39)

“Pay him no mind,” said Ifanna, nodding to the kitchen girl. “He’s a right arse when he’s tired but he’s not that bad. You don’t need to cower like—”

The girl looked up and Ifanna’s words froze on her lips.

It was no kitchen girl kneeling an arm’s length away.

Mer had grown leaner since the last time they had met; there was a hardness around her mouth, a mouth that once whispered quiet, sweet promises.

“You came all this way to visit me?” asked Ifanna. She kept her voice light, her mouth crooked into a smile. She was always smiling, no matter her mood. Smiling seemed to unnerve people, to make them think she had the upper hand. She would go to her death smiling, if only to spite whoever managed to slide in the knife.

Mer tilted her head so that some of her hair slid back, revealing the brand at the corner of her eye. It was a deliberate little gesture, a reminder of the scars that lay between them.

Ifanna swallowed but she did not stop smiling.

“I thought you might want a drink,” said Mer, with all the warmth and reassurance of a rusty nail. She pushed the tray beneath the bars.

Ifanna’s eyes fell upon the cup. “Poison?”

“It’s dwale.” Mer reached down, placing a finger into the wine. She placed a single drop on her tongue, her eyes on Ifanna all the while. “Hemlock, white poppy, and henbane.”

“You could have simply said yes,” said Ifanna.

“It won’t kill you,” said Mer, “but it should render you senseless for a good few hours. Long enough for me to call for the guards, to claim you choked on your food, and for you to be carried out with the corpses.”

“Should render me senseless?” Ifanna rocked. “Is this an attempt on my life or a rescue?”

Mer did not smile, but the corners of her eyes quirked upward. “I suppose that depends on whether I managed the right dose.”

Ifanna exhaled in a long, slow gust. “After you left, I kept expecting you to return.”

She knew better than to tell Mer that after they’d parted ways, she spent months avoiding puddles and streams, that even taking a bath had felt like tempting fate. Mer had been spymaster-raised and guild-trained, and if she had wanted to kill Ifanna for her betrayal, she could have done it.

But she hadn’t. And after half a year had passed, Ifanna realized—with a twinge of disappointment—that Mer wasn’t coming back. Not for revenge and not for Ifanna.

“After I left?” Mer’s words sharpened, twisted like a knife. She gripped the bars of the cell like she wanted to rend them apart. “I didn’t leave. I was chased away by royal soldiers. The ones you set on me.”

“And you escaped your pursuers,” said Ifanna. “I knew you would.”

“Did that thought soothe the sting of your betrayal?” said Mer.

Ifanna’s smile became a little rueful. “A bit.”

Perhaps it was an unwise truth to utter aloud, but Mer’s anger seemed to falter. She dropped her gaze to the floor, fingers loosening around the bars.

And Ifanna waited for the inevitable question. For the question that Ifanna had been composing answers for ever since that last job. Ifanna had only ever broken one promise in her life—and even now, she felt that broken promise like shards of glass beneath her skin.

Why? Why did you betray me?

Ifanna saw the shape of the question on Mer’s lips but she never uttered it.

So Ifanna did. “Why? Why did you return?”

“Not for you,” said Mer. Her eyes flashed, catching the torchlight. While some people became ugly with fury, Mer’s temper had always rendered her more beautiful in Ifanna’s eyes. Her cheeks would flush, and her jaw became more pronounced. Or perhaps it was just that Ifanna had a fondness for all things lovely and perilous—and Mer had always been both. “I am here for him. For the man who carved himself into my skin, who made me into the sword that fell upon whole villages, for the one who still hunts me.”

Ifanna looked at Mer and understood. “And to do so, you need a thief.”

“I need a thief,” agreed Mer. “And honestly, I’d rather have found someone else, but you’re the best. Don’t preen—you know it. If you agree to work for me—”

“With you,” put in Ifanna.

“—then drink that wine,” said Mer. “You’ll fall asleep in that cell and awaken elsewhere. And then we’ll steal a prince’s fortune.”

Mer had never been prone to boasting. While some in the guild would spin intricate tales out of an easy job, Mer had been content to sit in the back, to sip a warmed drink and listen. Which meant she spoke the truth.

A prince’s fortune. Ifanna’s heart quickened at the thought.

It was one thing for Ifanna to escape prison; her mothers expected her to. But to escape and return with a fortune… that would earn back the respect she’d lost on a cartful of stolen silver.

“I get half,” said Ifanna.

Mer shook her head. “One-sixth.”

A six-person crew. It couldn’t be Mer leading it—Mer had been many things, but never a leader. She hadn’t cared for the responsibility, nor did she have the patience needed to deal with others. And there was only one person who could command Mer.

“Your spymaster will agree to that deal?” Ifanna said.