Page 27 of The Uncrowned Prince

Niell choked and had to stop in the middle of the street while he coughed a half dozen times.

“Ah, no,” he said, when he’d finally recovered. “It was an offer to feed you. And a hope that you would be willing to pass the day in my company.”

“To prevent me from stabbing anyone?”

“Eh, perhaps a bit of yes and a bit of no.” Niell’s eyes twinkled with poorly suppressed mirth.

Clearly, something she said had amused him greatly.

“Which part is a no?” Curiosity wasnotone of an assassin’s greatest assets, but somehow she’d never managed to do away with hers. If she did not understand something, she felt compelled to worry at it, like a dog with a soup bone, until it made sense. And Niell… He made no sense at all.

“The fact that I want to?” he suggested. When she offered only a disbelieving stare, he sighed and tilted his head back to gaze at the sky in defeat.

“You may not believe me,” he said, “but I am accustomed to being surrounded by people who would happily stab me in the back. And just lately, I feel as if I am surrounded by children. While I care about them a great deal, I find that I am grateful for the opportunity to spend time with an adult who will not slide a dagger between my shoulder blades for entertainment.”

Karreya pondered those truths and tried to decide whether she ought to be offended. “You don’t believe I can kill you?”

“I believe that youwon’t,” he corrected. “There’s a rather large difference.”

“But… why?”

“Will you?” One of his eyebrows arched as he regarded her, arms folded across his chest.

She didn’t even have to pause, which was rather frightening. “No.”

“There you are, then.” He opened his arms and shrugged, palms up. “As it happens, even if it seems foolish to you, I actually find your company quite enjoyable. Though I haven’t asked how you feel aboutmycompany, which I should confess is more a matter of self-preservation than oversight.”

Her company wasenjoyable? Karreya suspected she ought to feel as if her professional dignity had been insulted, but the warmth in her face suggested she was feeling something else entirely. And what could he possibly have intended by his other statements?

“What do you mean ‘self-preservation?’”

He grinned. “It means that if I ask, I’m afraid you might tell me.”

Zulle help her—she almost smiled at that. Almost. Hopefully, he wouldn’t notice her lips twitching.

“Your company is perplexing, distracting, and occasionally irritating, but not distressing,” she said. “I will agree to your proposal.”

Niell’s mouth opened slightly, then shut again as his eyes crinkled with humor and he dissolved into laughter that was low and warm and entirely genuine. “Thank you,” he responded eventually, once he’d gained control of his amusement. “I think. Do you know, it has finally occurred to me that themostenjoyable thing about your company is how very easily and often you manage to surprise me.”

He did not mind that she was different. That she did not follow all the rules, or behave according to expectations. In fact, he claimed topreferit, and his words were not a lie.

“I accept your compliment.” Karreya hoped that was the appropriate response. But even if it were not? When her eyes met Niell’s, it seemed curiously as if they’d arrived at some sort of understanding.

Or perhaps the very beginnings of… trust. Such a strange word, and one she had never thought to apply to another person. But what else was she to call it when they’d caught a glimpse of one another’s true selves and refused to flinch? Perhaps it would not last. Perhaps all humans either betrayed or abandoned one another in the end. But somehow, that only made her more determined to indulge her curiosity while she could.

Mistress Bethia would frown and have her doing night patrols for a week, but what did that matter when there was no one here to tell her?

* * *

For the remainder of that day, Karreya trailed along in Niell’s wake, watching and learning and trying very hard not to glare at everyone in their immediate vicinity. Her training had not prepared her for blending in with the populace, so she was not used to worrying about whether her face might frighten people.

For his part, Niell ambled through the city with his hands in his pockets, as if he hadn’t a worry or a care. He stopped at several businesses to order food and supplies, but along the way he paused to speak to more people than Karreya bothered to count. And more than just conversing with them, helistened, and seemed to know enough about each of them to encourage them to talk.

They told him about their families, their fears, and whatever gossip they’d heard, and he somehow made them feel at ease without ever giving away anything of significance about himself.

It was on purpose, she realized after the first few such encounters—a skill he’d likely honed as carefully as she’d honed her skills with a dagger. Wherever he’d come from, whatever his background, it was unlikely he’d spent most of his life hiding in an abandoned warehouse on the Viali wharf-front.

Near the end of the day, they visited two different pigeon lofts, where Niell both sent and received a dizzying number of messages, all while chatting with the proprietors in a casual way that neatly distracted them from whatever his messages might contain.

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