Page 42 of Fated or Knot

“How’d you do that?” I asked in surprise.

“I can also make illusions.”

“As an essence spinner?”

“No, it’s part of my natural magic as a dream warden. What are illusions but dreams given form in our waking hours?” he said with a shrug. “You’ll also be able to save your magic without having to hide your suppressant tattoo. Your essence levels seem awfully low,” he remarked, looking at me curiously for an explanation I didn’t give. Fulfilling Cymora’s wishes had depleted my essence to a dangerous degree, and it never seemed to recover.

Kauz painted the memory charm on my wrist, and I felt a surge of his magic when it was completed. My scalp tingled, and I felt smarter in a way I couldn’t describe. Especially because I went back to stumbling over their language, earning a few laughs and corrections along the way.

The afternoon passed pleasantly and thus quickly. Kauz didn’t let me have my arm back for hours. He stopped spinning essence but continued painting, his brushes tickling my hand, wrist, and upper arm. When I stole glances toward him, all I saw was a shimmer like a heat mirage as some spell of his kept me from seeing what he was doing.

Fal held me the whole time, and while his hands didn’t drift, as promised, his mouth did. As his brother and I were distracted by our own pursuits, he would steal a nip on my ear or a kiss on my neck. He took every opportunity to whisper Serian in my ear with his talent in making it sound a little naughty.

When it was dinnertime, Kauz stole my workbook and journal. “You’ll get them back tomorrow,” he said in response to my protesting mewl.

“Tonight, you’re doing something else,” Fal said, nuzzling me one last time before we headed to the dining car. I sat between Kauz and Tormund, starting to catch on that the princes werearranging some kind of rotation. Marius sat with Cymora, trying not to look bored as she spoke to him at length about Osme Fen and Laurel’s pedigree.

I took a moment to rest my left elbow on the table and look at what Kauz had inked on my skin. My eyes watered, and I covered my wobbly lips with my other hand. The only way to describe it wasart. He’d obscured the heat suppressant tattoo with a bracelet of vines, leaves, and flowers that spilled out from my wrist. A hummingbird had its long beak up the bell of a flower, while mini butterflies and bees were caught mid-flight around the scene.

I turned my hand over and traced the open wings of an unusually colored lark poised to fly further down my inner arm. The brown in its feathers was indigo, with starry pinpricks scattered across them. The little spots under its chin were lavender, but it had a white belly and beady little eyes of any other lark. He’d captured the details down to the grains of its feathers. Its little talons were curled around a ribbon with a single sentence in Serian written upon it.

“Do you like it?” Kauz asked, holding himself quite still as I took in his work. I nodded, still teary. “If you don’t, it’s temporary. I can remove it if?—”

I forgot Cymora and Laurel were at the table with us, flinging my arms around him for a tight hug. “Iloveit,” I enthused. “You’re so talented.”

His murmur was in Serian as he hugged me back.

“He said—” Tormund began. Kauz interrupted with something else in Serian. “He said to tell you in private.”

“Not that there is much privacy to be had around here,” Cymora stated.

I caught the hint of her acidic tone bubbling to the surface and focused on Kauz. A doormat would notice her displeasure and let go of the male who’d painted her with art. I didn’t want tosend that kind of message to him, so I let him hold me through dinner instead.

Once we ate, I spent the evening with Kauz, Tormund, and Laurel. They taught us a Serian card game, and we played a few rounds. Laurel leaned on Kauz while giving him moon eyes. “Could you tattoo something on me, too?” she asked. Even from the comfort of Tormund now holding me, I felt a territorial growl rising in my chest.

“No. Not unless you’re willing to pay for the ink. It is rather expensive,” he answered while withdrawing the wing she was leaning on.

My stepsister glanced at me, shock rounding her lips. He’d told herno, denied her something I’d already received. I saw the thoughts rolling around in her head before one clearly came to the fore.

Did he make me pay for my tattoo?

She eyed me and the colorful ink on my arm petulantly. The question was poised on her tongue. Laurel always got to be the brat in our family, poking and prodding in ways that’d get me lashed. But she had some self-awareness, apparently, as she let it go and focused on her hand of cards in an attempt to win the complicated game we were trying to play.

She lost again. So did I, even more spectacularly, but it was a fun distraction. Kauz eventually left to trade places with Marius so they could rest in their own cots.

I fell asleep eagerly, but as pleasant as my dreams were, I didn’t think the dream warden visited them.

The next three days passed in much the same way. I studied and spent time with one or two of the princes on a rotation. I endured two afternoons with Cymora, who gave me no direct orders in the presence of the princes, though I could tell she was chafing more and more at their constant presence.

She also wasn’t sleeping well. By day four, purplish bruises were appearing in the hollows under her unhappy eyes. They grew more displeased each time she saw me having fun with the Unseelie males. We saw each other in the baths, and while she was short with me and had me arrange her hair, groom her nails, and apply her makeup, her only direct orders were to hear how “wooing” the princes was going.

I enjoyed the time I had while it was good and pleasant. Even Marius was starting to thaw and pass the occasional strict smile and praise my way when I did a particularly good job in my Serian studies. There’d been a subtle change in him since I’d put on the hoop earrings.

Thing was, I sympathized with him as the trip went on. The hours grew longer for no particular reason. I was rarely alone in any space, including the baths. What I wouldn’t give for the privacy to read a book in peace, too.

He thumbed through his while I studied in the afternoon, making the occasional reaction. Usually an amused little laugh. Laurel asked the question I was tempted to air. “What are you reading?”

“A war memoir,” he answered.

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