Page 67 of Kept to Kill
Bastian waved a hand casually. ‘Just a tiny backwater sort of place.’
‘Well.’ The king stood abruptly, so Quin did too. ‘I suppose I should let you get back to the beautiful companion I’ve heard about.’
Quin bowed his head once more. ‘Thank you for your invitation to the palace this evening.’
‘Of course. Of course. I do hope we can put the past behind us and step forward together. As you know, tensions between your army and mine have been strained as of late.’
‘Yes,’ Quin said, ‘that is my hope as well.’
‘Good, good,’ said the king, gesturing to one of his soldiers standing at attention by the door. ‘Have the Brothers shown to the main gate. Good evening.’
And then the king flounced from the room. They’d clearly been dismissed. They followed the guard through the great hall and out the main gate, the small door closing behind them with a bang and sealing them out of the palace.
‘What a waste of time,’ Bastian murmured, glancing back at the wall behind them.
‘Prick,’ Mal said.
‘Lower your voice,’ Bastian snapped.
‘Why did he want to see us?’ Quin muttered to himself. ‘There was no point to any of that.’
‘Perhaps it was simply to get the lie of the land, so to speak,’ Bastian volunteered.
‘Perhaps,’ Quin agreed outwardly, yet he wondered if he had more to worry about from the king.
They went back through the city to the safe house, doubling back on themselves, looping around and walking in opposite directions to ensure they weren’t followed. Quin did not want the king to specifically know where they were staying, especially not after his questions about Lily. He had seemed oddly fascinated by their Fourth and Quin didn’t like it.
The city was quiet as they walked through the streets, though the hour was not late. They passed near the north wall. Quin could smell the many corpses that lined them on the outside, all those who’d been accused of sorcery and burned outside the walls. He’d asked Del about it, but she’d simply shrugged as if it was merely a fact of life, telling him she hadn’t known any of the women herself.
But she had to have. According to Mal, there were hundreds hanging from the parapets, and no one in the city seemed to speak of it. There were no rumors, no tales of the people. Quin might have put it down to fear of the king, but it was more that no one cared enough to even speak of it except to say that they were witches who’d gotten what they’d deserved.
He glanced back at his two Brothers, their faces set and grim. There had been a time when Mal wouldn’t have thought twice about what had happened here, yet it seemed to affect him in some way now. It had to be Lily, didn’t it? She had changed him or awoken something in him that had been dormant before. She had taken some of his darkness from him – made him more human.
Quin didn’t think for a moment that Mal couldn’t still kill without remorse, but it seemed to him that his Brother was more able to resist his impulses than before. And Bastian had changed completely as well. Since they’d begun their journey, Quin hadn’t seen the man pick up more than a glass of wine per sitting, whereas before that he’d hardly seen the man sober.
He also realized that he’d not seen Bastian with any women save Lily since the camp. Previously, he’d rarely been without one, different each time, sampling them like fine wines.
Quin frowned as he thought about Lily. He needed to speak to her privately about what had happened. He wanted to apologize. He should have before, but he was a coward where she was concerned. Perhaps he had no business being Commander if he couldn’t even tell a girl that he was sorry for losing his temper. He had not looked upon her injuries since he had inflicted them, but considering how gingerly she sat, they must still be painful.
When they got back to the safe house and went inside, a box awaited them on the table.
‘What’s this?’ Bastian asked.
‘Lily’s disguise,’ Quin said.
Bastian pulled the lid off the box and whistled low as he pulled out a flimsy white transparent— could one even call that a dress? Quin’s brows rose. He’d seen his share of brothels, but he hadn’t realized quite what the courtesans in Kitore wore … or didn’t wear.
‘She needs to look like all the others,’ Quin muttered, more for himself than the others.
‘Yes, but look at it.’
‘Not clothes,’ Mal said from behind them.
‘She won’t wear this,’ Bastian muttered. ‘She always covers herself when she’s around others.’
‘Gets upset otherwise,’ Mal ground out.
‘She’s afraid of people touching her and you’re sending her into the belly of the beast dressed like that? You may as well make her go in there naked,’ Bastian said to Quin. ‘If she’s touched at the wrong time, she’ll be captured and killed before she can even get to the men she’s actually there to slay.’
