Page 70 of Waves
Felipe stiffened but stayed silent beside me. The two of them had gone rounds yesterday over whether the nixe was trustworthy.
The guard’s argument had been brief, as were most of his statements. “Former thief. That says it all.”
Of course, Mateo believed in redemption.
Sahar had, of course, tried to tell me that it was impossible to know what any of the competitors had been thinking, but thatshe’d have her contacts report back if any of the contestants were spotted—particularly together.
I didn’t think it mattered.
Their betrayal was far less significant to me than the fact that I didn’t think I trusted myself. My judgment of them had been faulty.
I hadn’t suspected a thing—not from them. Watkins had occupied far more of my thoughts. Even my suspicion of the pirate Valdez had been minimal…and he’d also fled. But earlier and on his own.
Maybe.
Or were all three linked?
Had it been a giant con?
The flames of repudiation slowly and steadily roasted the inside of my chest, the heat clogging my throat.
Fool. Idiot. Naive and stupid girl, thinking all these men might have wanted anything more than power. Might have wanted you. Arrogant. Pathetic.
I turned to stare out the window, at a loss.
In the distance, I spotted Keelan and his mother riding side by side on two seahorses, conversing. She had to keep batting away Mr. Whelk, and the scene of the two of them riding together was the closest thing to normalcy that I’d seen in days. I was glad she’d requested that Keelan spend the day with her.
It gave them both a break from the swirl of chaos that seemed to follow me like a school of flesh-eating fish. Keelan had been more injured than he’d let on to the others after the last attack, and only Lizza’s intervention had saved him.
Yet another debt I owed the undead witch. I doubted I’d ever let her return to Bloss’s castle. Her skills were far too valuable.
My lips pressed tightly together, and the image of mother and son blurred for a moment. I turned away before the emotions became overwhelming—the pinch of regret, the guilt,the sick stomach-dropping possibility that Keelan might not have survived.
He noticed me watching through the glass and spurred his seahorse into dashing closer, the beast bucking through the waves, Sahar’s lips thinning as she spurred her own mount closer.
I forced a smile for him, but my eyes stayed on her, on the stressed clench that seemed to have become constant in her lower jaw. The dull stare in her eyes. This last attack had snuffed something out in her…and we’d been so busy that I hadn’t had time to find out what.
The past few days had been full of numb motion for Sahar and me—there was constant political maneuvering as we both attempted to avoid the pain of loss but also failure. The marriage tournament she’d so painstakingly planned had collapsed. Tradition had been undermined. And my rein was a laughingstock to those who sided with the rebels and a disaster to those who didn’t.
Keelan slapped his good hand against our window playfully and Mr. Whelk followed suit. It was disturbing to see the scarred patches of skin along his working arm.
“Look at that, Mr. Whelk. We match!” Keelan played off the injury with a laugh as his mother pulled her white seahorse up beside him.
She didn’t laugh at his observation.
I didn’t either.
I tried not to let myself feel at all because I was well aware it might devolve into crying. It was better to just stifle emotion and do what needed to be done: conduct funerary rites, send apologies to grieving families, make promises to rebuild damaged structures. All of those activities had been peppered with foreign messengers and positive correspondence from theland kingdoms. But even the good news that trade ships were en route to Palati couldn’t lift my spirits.
“Queenie! Watch!” Keelan pulled at his seahorse’s reins and sped off a little—still in view of the window—before doing a loop de loop.
I could only muster up the empty shadow of a smile for him as his mother hurried back over, her gestures scolding even though I couldn’t hear her words.
I sank back into the dank darkness of my own thoughts about Raj. I was facing attacks from a man with the power to wish himself invisible. How was I supposed to fight someone like that?
Last night, I’d asked the bleak question to Sahar, and she hadn’t had a firm answer. Only hope. No matter how she’d rubbed my back, no matter how many times she’d reassured me, “It will all be over soon,” I couldn’t believe her.
Because in order for this nightmare to end, I had to find him, and I had no clue where to start.
