Page 58 of Wickedly Ever After
“Lie down,” Ida said, feeling sick. “You’re still weak. Once you’ve eaten, I’ll give you something to help you sleep.”
***
Hector brought the stew. “Tinbit made it, so it won’t kill you, although I can’t vouch for the quality of the ingredients. How’s Hari?”
“Still tired,” she said and sampled the stew. To her great surprise, it tasted good, although perhaps a bit smoky and mushroomy. “He just needs time.”
“I told Tinbit I’d make him a sleeping draught tonight. You’ll want the same for Hari, I suppose.”
“Yes,” Ida said. “Thank you.”
“It’s nothing,” Hector said. “I’ll get the belladonna.”
When Hector and Tinbit came up the stairs to the bedroom, quite late, darkness had fallen. Ida stood by the window, watching the lights come on in the town. Faintly candling beyond therange of torchlight, Hector’s wisps floated through the swamp to be gobbled up by mire imps.
Hari snored on the couch, a light blanket pulled up almost to his chin. In the firelight, he looked almost like himself again—brown, small, a slight smile curving his mouth, reminding Ida of his laughing face every time he woke her in the afternoon and said good morning.
She yawned. The trip and the week of forced early rising were wearing her down. She ought to be wide awake at this hour. Instead, she felt ready to drop on the straw mattress Belinda brought in and draped with a rough blanket. But she dreaded the bug bites. Cear had offered the help of a magical barrier of fire, but the idea of sleeping on a straw mattress surrounded by flames, even magical ones, unsettled her.
“He’s sleeping?” Hector said.
“Like a child,” Ida said.
“Good,” Tinbit said grumpily. “I’m about to join him.”
Ida froze.
He glared at her. “I meant in sleep,” he said.
“Of course,” Ida said.
Tinbit kicked off his boots and with a grumpy sigh, he lay down on the mattress on the floor.
“Uh—” Ida started.
“Tinbit, you and I will take the bed,” Hector said.
“No, we won’t.” Tinbit folded his hands over his chest. “I want to be alone. You want me to be alone. You want Hari to be alone. Well, we’re alone. You and her Goodness fight it out for the bed. I’m tired, I’m mad, and I’m going to sleep. Night.”
Hector glanced helplessly at Ida. “I’ll go back downstairs.”
“You said you didn’t feel it was wise to be separated.”
“It’s not, but—”
Ida looked at Hari’s face. Thin silver streams of tears trickled down his cheeks and his shoulders shook. Not asleep after all then. She sighed. “We’ll share the bed, Hector,” she said.
“You can’t be serious,” he stammered, going as red as any one of her roses. “I mean—you…and me…and…” he trailed off, obviously too flustered to go on.
“For pity’s sake! It’s not like we’ll be naked! Put your pajamas on—but I’m warning you, I will smother you with a pillow if you snore.”
27
Hector
Dear Sebastian,
I require overnight lodging in your establishment Rainsday evening. Please prepare my usual room, and another for a friend of mine. Not the Honeymoon Suite.
