Page 24 of Bound and Tide

“You should come down to the wharf after the election results are announced. I’m reopening the Terrin docks.”

“I’m very busy,” she said, then cleared her throat—he was being pleasant for once, and she didn’t want more broken bottles. Easing a little closer to the counter, she leaned in. “But I’ll see if I can make time for you.”

“Do see.” Horace winked and chucked her under the chin. Evangeline would have bit his finger clean off if she thought she could get away with it, but instead she stared hatred into his back and then into the door long after the bell finished ringing.

“Is that your boyfriend?”

Evangeline started at Xander’s voice then snorted. “If I had time or use for one of those, Horace would be the last person suited for the job.”

He’d peeked his head out from around the curtain. “Oh, good. I was a little concerned that man might find out that I did what he couldn’t, and then he’d want to break something of mine, and I’d have to kill him, and I just don’t feel like killing anyone else for a bit, you know?” Xander flounced out into the empty shop, stretching arms over his head, and she would have asked after that killing anyone else detail if he hadn’t been dressed in her robe.

“What do you think you’re doing in that?”

“Wearing the Abyss out of it.” Xander smirked, and she had to admit he was correct, lean limbs on display. “It looks much better with my complexion than yours anyway. You ought to be wearing cool jewel tones, not scarlet—it clashes with your hair.”

“That was a gift.”

“Well, whoever gave it to you is blind.”

“That would explain why he was so good at feeling his way around in the dark.”

Xander chuckled deeply and strode through her shop looking significantly better than when she’d collected him off the street. The deep brown of his eyes shone with the fire in the hearth, and the wound on his forehead was now only a faded line running through his smooth, bruiseless skin. Even his hair looked better, but by the smell of him, he’d gotten into her oils to slick it back and affix it with one of her whalebone hairpins, gods damn it.

The little imps followed on their webbed feet, but at least they were no longer leaving watery prints all over.

“Well, we’re closed,” she huffed, going for the door, “and you look to be doing much better so—”

“Don’t send me away yet—I haven’t been fed since breakfast.”

Her eyes flicked to the stew she’d put together at midday and abandoned to simmer when customers came in. “Neither have I.”

Xander pouted and went for the pot, and Evangeline latched the door with him still inside despite herself. She watched him take a sniff and crinkle his nose. “Surrounded by all these herbs, and yet this smells worse than river water.”

“Eating is functional,” she said, waving a hand and going for the tiebacks on the window—she didn’t particularly care if someone caught a glance of a handsome man strolling half-dressed through her shop, but the imps were perhaps a little incriminating.

“When something is necessary, why not make it pleasurable?” He was already gathering jars and untying bundles of herbs, choosing them by smell alone. “Will any of these prove fatal?”

“Depends on how much more you intend on infuriating me.”

He shrugged and returned to the pot, setting himself up a makeshift workspace. “So, tell me about your not-boyfriend.”

“You cook?” she asked, straightening the shelves the customers had left messy and ignoring his request.

“Of course I cook—someone had to teach the shadow imps. Who doesn’t cook?” He took a taste from the ladle and stuck out his tongue. “Except you, apparently. What in the Abyss is this?”

“Eel stew. And aren’t these water imps?”

The three of them had planted themselves in a circle and were tossing an enchanted droplet back and forth with increasing speed. Perhaps if someone did see them, they wouldn’t think anything bad at all.

“Those ones are, yes, and what kind of joke is putting eel in a stew? You’re practically mocking the thing, and then you intend to eat it? Is there no end to the ways you river-people can offend my delicate desert sensibilities?” He pulled a knife from one of the robe’s pockets and set to chopping up a sprig. “Don’t think I haven’t noticed that none of this is you telling me what I asked.”

“Oh, that man is just a bored little shit who’s used to getting what he wants because he was wealthy once upon a time. You’d probably get along, honestly.”

At that Xander grinned as he sprinkled herbs over the pot. “I doubt that very much.”

She turned away to tidy a bin and grinned herself. She would like to watch the two of them take swings at one another provided Xander came out on top. Then, perhaps she would let him come out on top too.

“I did notice he’s a bit obsessive, skulking about nearly every day. I understand the draw, but there’s something else, isn’t there?”

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