Page 20 of Wickedly Ever After
Tinbit eyed him distrustfully.
“You packed my swim trunks. I can go to the spa.” He wouldn’t be caught dead in those things. He was a good-looking man for his age, but his knees were knobby and he was somewhat bowlegged, a sequela from riding a broom for most of his younger years. He’d hate to see anyone turned to stone for staring at his legs.
“I wish you’d get out more,” Tinbit said. “I’d hate knowing you’re lonely.”
“I’m never lonely.” It wasn’t the truth, not exactly, but after nine hundred ninety years, he’d learned not to bother his butler with trivial things like how he sometimes paced his bedroom at night, about the doses of belladonna he was taking for his insomnia now, or bigger things like the pit of despair inside at the thought of losing someone so dear to him as Tinbit to that monster called love.
He grabbed another cushion, shoved it under his head, and closed his eyes.
Darkness had fallen when the coach stopped in the largest town on the border of his evil realm. As he stepped down, he took a long breath of the fog drifting in from the marshes, a pleasant stench—herbal, rotten, with a hint of blood. People who lived here grew up strong and tough on such an aroma.
A thug was busy gutting a man in the shadows beside the inn door. He looked up with an eye for a new victim, but Hector’s bodyguards, both tall skeletons with heavy jaws and heavier punches, flexed their clavicles and pounded their bony phalanges against their equally bony metacarpals. The man slid back into the dark.
The lawlessness was part of the place too, like the smell. Butit bothered Hector that the townsfolk didn’t stop at terrorizing visitors. He’d always hoped they would band together instead of murdering each other. Over the years he’d gotten goblins to unionize and set up pensions for their elderly, the dragons to quit cooking knights à la carte, and the giants, bless them, were well on their way to outlawing the murder of anyone named Jack. But ordinary humans didn’t seem to understand it wasn’t nice to knife each other for no good reason.
Tinbit stuck close to Hector as they walked the distance from the stable to the inn.
Once inside, Tinbit took Hector’s coat while he waited a respectful distance from the fire. His burns were still somewhat sensitive. The décor appeared in good order for an evil tavern—bright fire, greasy tables, a few tired men by the bar, and a maid who looked quite capable of moonlighting as an assassin. The smoky air irritated his throat, and he coughed into his elbow. He didn’t want the innkeeper to think he disapproved.
Tinbit came back from the desk with their room key. “I’ve asked them to bring the food upstairs and confirmed we’ll be putting our own hexes on the doors and windows, and I asked for a dehumidifier for the damp. Sorry about this—they didn’t have a non-smoking room.”
“It’s quite all right,” he said, noting with approval the man with a long pipe in the darkest corner. “Give that man a tip,” he said. “He’s the best dark and brooding stranger I’ve seen in a while.”
The upstairs room was only slightly less smoky than downstairs, but a quick spell applied to the large, ornate four-poster immediately stunned the bedbugs.
“I hope you don’t mind sharing,” Tinbit said apologeticallyas the assassin laid out their evening repast on the table. “I didn’t feel comfortable taking a separate room.”
“I don’t kick too hard,” Hector said, adding a few more gold coins to the oak tray for the maid’s trouble. Over the centuries, he’d learned a healthy tip was key to staying healthy in a place like this. He noted how she removed the wine carafe immediately and promised to bring a fresh one—there was a fly. Yes, and a lovely quantity of poison hemlock. He’d make sure he mentioned that in his review.
“I’ve been thinking about our reservations in the capital,” he said. “I wish you would let me upgrade them to two rooms. I feel I might be a distraction.”
“No—don’t,” Tinbit said, blushing. “It’s not that I don’t appreciate it, but I’m counting on you to keep me honest. You know what I’m like. I don’t want to get into a situation where he asks me if I have a room and I’d need to lie. I don’t know how this is going to go.” He hopped up on the bed and sat, legs dangling. “Maybe I shouldn’t have said yes to this meeting, but if there’s a chance…well.” He sighed. “You’re lucky, Hector. You don’t have a heart to lose anymore.”
“That is one of the perks of being a witch,” he said, smiling.
He didn’t tell Tinbit the rest of it, the part about how much it hurt, cutting his own heart out, locking it in a stone box, and hiding it away from the world. He’d buried it under a magnificent apple tree in his garden long ago, the first time he lost someone dear to him. He ought to have destroyed it then. It was clearly a liability, but something about stabbing it, burning it, or simply blasting it out of existence seemed so…final. And if it had hurt so much to take it out, how much worse would it be to destroy it?
He pushed the memories away. “Now, how about dinner?”
After the dinner, which Tinbit refused to eat—too many mushrooms, any one of them might be an amanita—Hector lay down next to Tinbit, listening to the gnome’s squeaky little snores. He watched the fire burn on the hearth, sending out a strong, smoky aroma of pine, and thought about the ashes of the letter he’d written to Ida, still sitting in the grate at home.
A moment’s weakness, that’s all it had been. A moment’s weakness, not a feeling that for the second time he’d cut something out of his life that hurt as bad as his heart.
10
Ida
My Dearest, Sweetest, Bestest of Good Witches, Ida,
I’m so delighted you can attend the banquet! I can’t wait to see you again! So exciting! I invited the Common Princess to tea, but she wouldn’t come! Can you believe it? I don’t know how they got her past the committee, do you? I can’t wait to pick your brain. I mean, if the little bitch is going to marry my son, I think I should know all the dirt.
Oh, Ida, it will be just like old times. Do you remember when I came to your castle as the Common Princess? I was so scared, even though I knew I’d be selected. I thought maybe you’d give me a test, like picking up grains of rice in a room, and I’ve always been petrified of enchanted mice. But you were so sweet. One look at your pink, godmotherly face and I knew we would always be the best of friends.
Oh, by the way, Rupert says to invite you to the Rogues and Thieves game Moonsday night. Won’t that be lovely? Those fae hurling players are oh so much eye candy. You can drool with me. Let Rupert keep the other guests busy. You and I will have such a good girly time together! Squeee! Can hardly wait!
Your best princess, Queen of the Four Kingdoms, Sweetheart of the Commoners,
Annabeth
