Page 52 of Fae Reckoning

“I’m gonna go help the others get him to talk. But I need some pants first. Don’t wanna go shocking anyoneif I can help it.” He waited a beat, then added, “Like you.”

“Ha,” I blurted. “I’m not shocked.”

He snorted. “Yeah, Wyn, sure. You forget I know you better than anyone.”

Before my unwilling arrival in Embermere I would have agreed with him, without hesitation. Even Zako hadn’t known me as well because I’d believed Zako to be my father, and a strict disciplinarian of one at that. But after connecting with Rush as deeply as he and I had? No, Xeno didn’t know me better than Rush did. Not anymore. No way. But I didn’t have the heart to tell my best friend that.

So I chuckled dismissively. “Let’s find you some pants, then.” I turned toward where I’d find Pru and Edsel and … oh, and Larissa… If Azariah had been agog, Larissa appeared dumbfounded. Her mouth hanging open, she did nothing to hide how studiously she was admiring my friend.

A surprised, “Oh,” slipped out of me before I glanced back at Xeno. He, too, had noticed his admirer. He watched her with a curious tilt to his brows.

“She’s Rush’s sister,” I offered, unsure who’d met whom since we hadn’t had the chance for proper introductions. “His younger sister,” I qualified when Xeno only continued looking at her. “She’s quite sweet.”

“Okay,” he said noncommittally, when Larissa appeared to come to her senses with a start.

Her eyes went wide as a pink the same tone as her hair swept up her neck and across her cheeks. Urgently,she snapped her head in the opposite direction, ending up looking at Pru, who was watching the scene unfold too.

Seeing me spot her, Pru hitched Saffron onto her hip and started toward us. Even though she was practically cock height, she was unruffled. That was when I remembered she’d been Saturn’s attendant, and as a servant of the palace where she was expected to be invisible yet always immediately available, she’d probablyseen some shitover her years of service.

Saffron jumped back into my arms before I decided I was ready to receive him. But it was just as well, since as soon as her hands were free Pru reached under her frock and emerged once again with her handy-dandy emergency kit. She set to unraveling it, and Saffron lunged to playfully snap at the canvas holder. Hastily, I pulled him back.

“No biting Pru’s kickass kit, Saffy,” I scolded. “We keep needing it.”

“I take it Milord Xeno could use some new breeches?” Pru asked while unfurling her case. It started no wider than two of her fingers side by side, and this time she unrolled until it plopped over her black dragon-like feet and kept going.

“Yes please, Pru,” Xeno said. “But remember, none of that ‘milord’ shit.”

Ah, of course. After I’d vanished from the Sorumbra they’d trekked to the palace together. They would have had plenty of time to become familiar with each other.

Pru chuckled amiably while backing up to make more room for the unwinding kit, until it trailed over a bumpy tree root and she’d soon run into Edsel, who was bent stiffly at the waist over one of his patients. Oh no, were his knees bothering him again?

“Does it have no end?” I asked Pru, a tinge of awe to my question.

“Only till it gives me what I need, Mis—Elowyn.” Without releasing the case, she crouched beside the relevant stretch of it. The tip of a gray tongue peeked out from between her lips as she snaked one hand into a deep pocket of the holder and rummaged around inside it even though the pocket was only a few inches deep. Her tongue pushed out farther as her arm disappeared into the pocket up to her shoulder. She leaned forward until her shoulder went in too and waved her arm around inside … somewhere far beyond the realms of physical possibility.

With the dragonling clutched against my chest, and forgetting my friend was naked, I bumped my arm against his. “Magic is so fucking cool, is it not?”

He bumped arms back, his curiosity affixed to the scene in front of us. “Sofucking cool. To think what we could do in Nightguard with magic like this.”

“By sunshine, maybe we could even have hot running water like they do at the palace.”

“Damn, that’d be awesome.”

I didn’t continue the exploration with him. I was too busy realizing I’d spoken as if Nightguard were my home when it really wasn’t.

Pru slapped what remained of the rolled canvas onto her lap, grunted, and dove headfirst into the pocket up to her waist. Saffron whined, perhaps thinking the goblin was leaving, and Xeno bumped my shoulder again.

“I can read you better than you think I can. I know you’re not going back to Nightguard.”

I didn’t say anything, pretending I was too fascinated by the objectively fascinating scene unfolding in front of us.

“I stay where you stay, Wyn.”

I glanced up at him. Saffron took the opportunity to lick his sandpaper tongue up my neck and chin.

Xeno’s stare burrowed into mine. “I’m not leaving you. I don’t care.”

I don’t care. That could mean a whole lot of things…

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