Inkmistress (Of Fire and Stars 0.5)(47)
Another surge of anxiety made me bite my lip. Nismae’s research was deep enough to somehow give her—or one of her people—the ability to work with magic directly. It was easier to meddle than to create, and certainly possible for them to do simple enchantments, but repairing something as sophisticated as a prize of the crown wasn’t something ordinary mortals should have been able to easily do. I hoped that meant she was that much more likely to know something about my abilities and which god they had come from.
“Are you ready to go in?” Hal asked.
“Of course.” I nodded, squeezing the strap of my satchel with both hands where it crossed between my breasts. We were about to rejoin his people, including the sister who had raised him. Would he be the same person around them? Hal had become entirely familiar to me. We could set up or take down our camps without exchanging more than a few words, the tasks routine and companionable. I’d come to rely on our easy familiarity and was suddenly frightened it might be snatched away.
What if Nismae didn’t like that he’d brought me here?
And what if she didn’t know anything about Atheon or the Fatestone after all? Knowing the secrets of my origin wouldn’t help me if I couldn’t fix my mistakes.
Hal tugged open a heavy wooden door so we could enter the adjacent room, a rectangular chamber filled with people conversing over food and hot tea. The windows along the west-facing wall stood open, though some unseen barrier kept the fog and the chill of the air at bay. A potted plant in the corner grew wildly over one windowsill, its heart-shaped leaves turned toward what little light filtered through the mist.
“Hal!” someone said, and then everyone in the room surged to their feet, surrounding Hal, hugging him and clapping him on the back. I scanned the room, looking for Hal’s sister, but I didn’t see anyone who shared his features or who carried herself like a leader.
“Where have you been?” an older man asked.
“We thought maybe you finally encountered something you couldn’t outrun,” one of the younger girls joked.
“Just took an unexpected detour on the way home is all,” Hal said, basking in the warmth of their affection. The younger people jostled Hal, showing him all sorts of improbable places they’d figured out to hide their weapons in their clothing. Was this what it felt like to truly have a family? Things had never been this way with Miriel, or even with Ina. The camaraderie in the room was so much bigger than anything I’d ever experienced.
“Yeon, where’s Nis?” Hal asked the older man who had spoken first.
“Said she’ll be back by the end of the week,” Yeon answered.
“She didn’t say where?” Hal asked.
Yeon shrugged. “Sometimes it’s better not to ask.”
“Well, at least we have a place to stay until she returns,” Hal said. He didn’t seem concerned, but of course he wouldn’t be—he didn’t understand the urgency of my quest.
I looked at him uncertainly, not sure how I felt about staying in this cold stone tower with all these people for days on end. He finally gestured for me to move up alongside him as soon as the others gave him a little space.
“This is Asra,” Hal introduced me.
Everyone stared at me, their expressions ranging from curiosity to distrust.
“Nice to meet you,” I said, even though I wasn’t sure yet that was the case.
“Where’d you pick this one up?” the oldest man asked. “Not that special massage parlor in Kartasha, I hope. Remember that?” He guffawed and elbowed a slim person beside him, nearly sending them flying. They gave him an indignant look and elbowed him back even harder.
Special massage parlor? That story hadn’t come up on our travels.
“Yeon! That was Nis’s job and you know it,” Hal said, shooting me a panicked look.
I raised an eyebrow.
“I was with Nismae on a mission to bring a lord’s daughter back from Kartasha, and it turned out she was working in a special massage parlor there where the people provide their services . . . unclothed.” He rushed through the explanation, clearly mortified.
“The kid was only twelve at the time!” Yeon slapped his knee, beyond delighted by the whole thing.
“It was very . . . educational,” Hal stammered.
“You northerners are so prudish, probably because it’s too gods-damned cold to take off your clothes ten moons out of the year,” Yeon said with a chuckle.
A few of the other Nightswifts—also from the north, I presumed—gave him dirty looks.
I couldn’t help a laugh at Hal’s red cheeks.
“Asra isn’t from Kartasha, nor does she work in a massage parlor. She saved my life when we ran into trouble in Valenko,” Hal said, doing his best to change the topic.
“Wondered how you were gonna get out of there without a manifest, but you always manage it.” Yeon shook his head.
“No thanks to you,” Hal teased.
“Not my fault you can’t fly like a proper Swift. Let’s give thanks to Asra, who helped our Hal escape!” Yeon said, raising a mug of tea from the table.
The rest of the room toasted me as well, and though I wanted to melt into the floor to disappear from the intensity of their attention, it still felt better than the skepticism with which I’d initially been received. They beckoned us to join them at their tables, sharing their bread, cheese, and bittersweet preserves, and caught Hal up on the humorous mishaps from their latest missions. I didn’t know what to say to anyone, so I kept quiet, smiled when it seemed appropriate, and stuffed myself with warm, crusty bread slathered in a thick creamy cheese veined with salty blue.