Page 21 of Bound and Tide

This is what you’ve earned yourself.

“Enough!” Xander raised his hands, but something bit into his arm, slicing along his sleeve. His own spell? More surprise pain caught his back and forehead with the unseen sharpness in the shadows.

His gaze flicked down to his vial, but then a soggy something wrapped itself about his ankle. He saw the tentacle for only a moment before the world was ripped out from under him.

The back of Xander’s head hit the deck, and the darkness of the world spun. His clumsy grip found the vial, though, and he uncorked the powerful, untainted magic inside. With a smear and a spell, the shadows immediately dispersed. There were thumps to either side of him and then the wheezing of at least two still-living creatures. Xander blinked, stars in his eyes, then took his dagger in hand. He sat up and blindly sliced at the grotesque suckers that had latched onto him.

The rest of the slimy thing floundered, black blood spurting out. He grabbed up what was left of the critter, and a floppy, wet thing wriggled in his hand. He gave it a near neck-breaking shake, and the rest of its tentacles shrank away as it reformed.

With the shadows gone, dim light trailed in through portholes to reveal an imp flopping about. At least, it was as imp-like as any of the other kinds with bulbous black eyes, a flat snout, and an infernal aura. But this one had smooth grey skin that went transparent where it stretched over a rounded belly, inside an amorphous jelly that contained sloshing sea detritus. Xander was most familiar with shadow imps, bodies made up of smoke until they needed to be corporeal, but he had to assume this was a water imp, and it was…slimy.

“Disgusting,” he huffed, dropping the nasty creature and wiping his hand off on the closest tarp. “Are you quite done now?”

The imp rolled over onto its back, clasping the stub left of its severed arm, and peered up at him in abject terror. It garbled something like, “Mercy,” in Chthonic, though it was clear the thing didn’t really have the capacity for speech. Two more cowered up against the back wall, spindly arms wrapped around one another.

“What are they?” Maia had regained herself, sitting up on her knees. Beside her, Costa was taking huge gulps of air.

“Water imps from the Infernal Plane. Oh, don’t look like that, they’re harmless.” Xander stood, and his whole body felt as though it had been crushed by a stampede of oxen. “Mostly.”

“They almost killed us,” Costa whispered.

“Right…they did.” Xander caught himself wavering and closed his eyes so the hull would stop spinning. The two didn’t know that was his own arcana that had trapped them, but the imps knew—that was why they were scrambling now to genuflect at his feet.

Rarely did imps find themselves without a master on this plane, so these ones had either slipped through accidentally or been summoned and then abandoned, probably because they were so pathetic. Creatures couldn’t be expected to be kept around if they weren’t good for anything, if they didn’t carry out orders, fulfill their purpose, serve.

For the briefest of moments, a tightness in Xander’s chest overwhelmed all the other pain and lethargy coursing through him, but then it was gone.

“You are forbidden from possessing this vessel,” he muttered, eyes opening as he loomed over them. The imps nodded and apologized in broken Chthonic, but remained at his feet, trembling.

Nausea roiled in Xander’s stomach, and dizziness pressed in again.

“Uh, hey? You alive?”

Xander’s eyes opened, though he’d not remembered closing them again. He didn’t remember sitting either, or falling lax against a stack of crates. Darkness, he just wanted to sleep.

The spent blood mage pulled the charter for Frost’s Plunder out of his pocket and thrust it at Maia, who was leaning over him and scowling. “Here. Give that to whomever it’s owed and”—a yawn caught him—“well, give it to them tomorrow. Maybe late tomorrow. I don’t want them thinking they get me along with the boat.”

She took the parchment. “So…we can just…go?”

Xander wrapped his arms around himself and tucked his hands into his coat. “I’ll find you again to call in my favor, mark my…” But his words trailed off as he fell asleep.

Chapter 12

THREATS BOTH MEANINGFUL AND NOT

Well, that was that, and as Evangeline had predicted, things were over. The day had come and gone and she…hadn’t. Not like the night before which had been the kind of pleasant she had forgotten existed. And that was fine. Completely and utterly fine. She wasn’t even really thinking about it, or him, or that tongue. Not at all.

She just hadn’t expected to be so damn disappointed.

But it was mostly disappointment with herself—she’d done a terrible job at guessing what he was ultimately after. She assumed he’d come back to at least get a little something for himself, but the apothecary’s door opened many times that day, and it was never him walking through it.

It was never Xander.

“Gods, why did I ask for his name?” At least she could put the frustration behind her pestle, grinding the milkweed seeds into absolute dust.

Horace didn’t stop by though, and that was a small relief, one she only realized when she was pummeling her pillows to bed down for the night. Alone.

Evangeline flipped over in the expanse of her bed and reached out to the side table, hand immediately finding the amphivirate. She turned over the deep blue liquid in its vial, and it coated the glass thickly, flecks of valerian floating inside. She was unlikely to sleep without it tonight despite her exhaustion, not like the night before when closing her eyes had been so easy. With a sigh, she popped the cork and touched her tongue to the vial’s rim.

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