Page 29 of The Arrow and the Alder

The baron?

Alder lifted his hood to be sure that he was seeing correctly—yes, that was definitely the baron’s severed head lying on its side, but why had he…

“You’rekith!” Josephine exclaimed.

Alder frowned at the girl, who was staring at his exposed ears, and it was then he noticed the bundle clutched in her hands.

The coat.

The very one Massie had been carrying when Alder had pursued him through the small tear in the veil.

Well, this had just taken averyinteresting turn.

“Isn’t that the coat Massie is after?” Alder asked, eyeing her.

Josephine blinked and glanced down at the coat, as if she’d forgotten she was holding on to it. Her lips parted and closed, and her anger morphed into trepidation.

“What is it to you?” she asked carefully, gazing back up at him, her expression guarded.

“It is nothing to me.”Yet. “I just wasn’t expecting to find ithere, withyou.” He stared at her long and hard as if he might stare out the truth.

Her gaze faltered. “Well, it’s a bit of a long story, and?—”

“I’ve got time.”

She turned those huge blue eyes boldly back upon him. “Oh,nowyou’ve got time.”

“And you’re certainly not going anywhere.” He gestured emphatically to the pit, ignoring her blooming fury as he sat down on the edge and draped one leg over, taunting her with his freedom.

“You’re serious,” she fumed.

“Perfectly.”

She looked like she might throw something at him. The baron’s head, for instance. “Then let’s start with my brother, since you were in too much of a hurry last time.”

“I am not the one who offered a story.”

She cursed and looked sharply aside, squeezing the enchanted coat to her body, and Alder realized she must be freezing. She wore only a nightdress beneath her drenched coat, though how she could be cold at all with so much fire in her soul, Alder could only wonder.

“You’re incorrigible,” she ground out.

“So I’ve been told, but I am also your only way out. So.” He leaned forward and folded his arms. Waiting.

Still she hesitated, rubbing her arms as she glanced about them. “Shouldn’t we find someplace safe first?”

“Why?”

“What if more depraved attack?”

“That’s hardly your concern. It’s not as though you contributed to my victory this last time.”

She was incensed and speechless, but before she could muster a retort, he said, in all seriousness, “Your story for my aid, mortal. That is my bargain. Do you accept?”

His words seemed to stir something within her—something greater than this moment and their present circumstances—and her gaze speared right through him. “You kith and your damned bargains. Is that the real reason Rys is dead? Because you left him to die when he didn’t agree to your terms?”

This time, it was Alder who looked away.

And he was getting nowhere with this conversation. Time to employ a different tactic.

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