Page 129 of Foul Days

“Wait.” Kosara interrupted him, waiting for his words to start making sense. “Wait a minute.” Still waiting. Surely, she must have misheard him. “What do you mean, she never knew?”

“I couldn’t tell her while the operation was still ongoing. I was working undercover.”

“You couldn’t…” Kosara repeated, rolling the words around in her mouth, as if saying them herself would somehow make them sound reasonable. “You couldn’t tell her because you were working undercover.” Nope, still made zero sense. “You were married, Bakharov!”

“I was undercover. Revealing myself to her would have put the whole operation and all my colleagues in jeopardy.”

“You were married!” Kosara said, this time even louder. She was surprised she couldn’t hear the yudas outside calling his name, because she was so angry, she could kill him. “You swore an oath to that woman, and she swore an oath to you, and the entire time, you were lying to her.”

“I had no choice. I couldn’t tell her the truth. For her own good, as well as mine.”

“Oh no, no, no. Don’t you dare act all high and mighty now. You didn’t tell her because you knew she’d leave you if she discovered the truth.”

Asen finally managed to push himself up and looked at Kosara. He was such a sorry sight with his tired eyes and his messy hair, and the tears rolling down his cheeks mixing with the rain. Kosara would have felt pity for him if she wasn’t furious.

He’d lied to his wife. Worse, he’d lied to a witch.

“I tried to protect her,” he said quietly.

“No, you tried to protect your precious sense of self-righteousness. You think you’re pure as the driven snow, don’t you?” He opened his mouth to say something, but she didn’t let him. “Well, you’re not. There’s a difference between being technically right and morally right, and you’d choose technically right every single time. Even if it means letting people die because of it.”

Kosara stopped talking, realising only a second too late she’d maybe gone too far. Hurt flashed across Asen’s face. Who was she to talk about “right”?

“Who are you to talk about ‘right’?” he snapped. Honestly, could he read thoughts? “You cheat and trick and manipulate people. The moment I start to think that maybe you deserve even the tiniest crumb of my trust, you do something to make me change my mind.”

Oh, was he really going to bring that up again? “Listen,” she said patiently. “As I said, I’m sorry about the serum and the kiss, but that’s in no way comparable to—”

“What serum?”

Kosara stared at him, caught like a karakonjul in the fireball light. He didn’t know about the serum. Goddamnit it. Would she ever learn to think before she spoke?

“Oh,” she said quickly, “it’s an old Chernogradean saying. A serum and a kiss. It comes from a sea shanty, I believe.”

Asen kept staring at her. She had to admit it had been a clumsy attempt at a cover-up.

She sighed. “I put a drop of truth serum in the wine the other night.”

“You spiked my drink?”

“It sounds awful when you put it like that.…”

“How else would I put it?”

“I encouraged you to open up to me using a perfectly safe, already tested substance?”

He said nothing. His glare drilled a hole in Kosara’s forehead.

“You don’t understand,” she said. “I was worried for you, as well as for myself. Wearing a random talisman, you’d got from who knows where, was putting us both in great danger.”

“I know exactly where my talisman came from, thank you very much.”

“Then why didn’t you tell me about it when I first asked? If you’d said your wife—”

“Because it’s none of your business.” He sounded dangerously close to yelling. He shut his eyes and took several deep breaths. “I don’t know you. You don’t know me. We’re not friends.”

Kosara inhaled sharply.

“Why do you look so hurt?” Asen asked. “Friends don’t try to trick each other. Friends don’t put strange, illegal substances into each other’s drinks!”

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