Black Bottle

“Why?”

“It was an arranged marriage!” she blurted out. She couldn’t help it. “And I know you won’t understand, but I wasn’t rebelling. It was supposed to be a gift from my parents to me. I wanted it.”

She locked her arm straight up and down in front of her, knuckles buried in her lap, face hidden partly in the hollow of her shoulder. She wanted to hide. “There was a baby. The wedding was called off.”

Caliph looked stricken, confused. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I—” He didn’t know what to say. Clearly. Clearly he had no idea where this outburst had come from, why she was telling him this seemingly unrelated thing. Wasn’t it obvious?

“I can’t go home,” she said tearfully. “They don’t want me. They gave me money to go away. Don’t you see? I don’t have anywhere else to go.” She reached immediately for her wineglass and drained it. Her whole mouth puckered. Then she risked a look at Caliph’s face. His expression didn’t read as apathetic. He wasn’t rolling his eyes or looking evasively toward the floor.

“What happened?” Caliph asked.

She sniffed. “After the wedding was called off I spent my days down at the park, at the library. Thank you.” She took the napkin he handed her and wiped her nose. “There was a statue there of Emperor Vog. His widow came every day and just sat there, in her dead husband’s shadow, feeding the birds, moving when the sun changed. We talked.”

“Then you had the baby?”

“Yes. My parents pressured me into leaving it with Aviv. Which I did. But he was Despche. And it wasn’t political, you know, to be with one of the slavers … no matter how rich his family was.”

“Do you keep in—”

“No,” she interjected fiercely, then softened. “No, I haven’t spoken to Aviv since the birth. His family owned an archipelago, so he probably went there. I stayed at the hospital after the delivery. For depression, you know? Nothing serious. When they released me I decided I needed a fresh start. My family practically threw me out the door. I decided to build a church.”

“From your grandfather’s journals.”

“Yes.”

The last breathless rays of sunlight blazed an oblique trail through the railing and over the deck, the end of which trailed across the arch of Caliph’s boot. She saw his foot flex inside the leather, which probably indicated he was thinking furiously. “I think my church days are over,” she said.

“Why?”

“Just a feeling. Nenuln doesn’t answer when I pray. Maybe she never did. What if it was all me? Making it up?”

Caliph didn’t smile. “A friend of mine, scientific type, says we’re constrained by our five senses. Enlightened, he says, but also constrained. He says we’re like a blind newt in a cave, doing the only things we can, trusting in the senses we possess. But that there are things out there, beyond the cave, red flowers we will never see or smell. We can only hear stories about them and trust or disbelieve that they are there. I haven’t made up my mind about any of that, but I think it’s a nice metaphor. I don’t blame you for believing in your goddess—whoever she is.”

Taelin was stunned. She had hardly expected such a thoughtful reaction to her admission of doubt. “Your friend sounds a bit factious for a scientist. I mean if he’s advocating for whatever’s out there.” She glanced at the sky.

“I think he’s a good thinker … he’s also a good friend. Theories’ll change in twenty years where I feel his friendship won’t.”

Taelin felt her lips screwing into a slow smile. Why am I making eyes at him!

“Please,” she said. “Please don’t take me home. You don’t know my family.”

“No, I don’t.”

“Then you won’t take me home?”

Caliph gestured to the tinkling strand of lights. “Did I leave the lights on?” He was not a bad person, she decided earnestly. He was a good person who, like many good people, had taken the wrong lover. It was clear to her that he was genuine. He cared about what had happened back at Sandren. She could see the fretfulness, no: the foreboding in his face.

“I saw pictures of what you were reading … in my head.” She plunged into the matter that had brought them to dinner. “I saw your uncle,” she pressed her lips together, afraid of sounding crazy, “the horrible things he said to you. And what Sena wrote—that you need to figure something out.”

She had to force herself to watch his face. What if he laughed? What if he … but his face had gone slack. His eyes were wide now and staring at her. It was true. She had really been inside his head. She couldn’t explain it, but it was there—between them—substantiated and undeniable.

“You have to take me with you,” Taelin said. He had gone so pale. Vulnerable almost. “She doesn’t love you,” Taelin pressed. “It’s a trick. Something horrible is going to happen and we have to stop her.”

His mouth opened and for a few moments his lower jaw shifted as if he was trying to fit it over an invisible object. He seemed to give up. A potentially complicated answer never emerged and instead he said, “I know.”

Taelin saw him as a boy with a new puppy in a sack. The sack’s neck was knotted; it was weighted down with rocks. Caliph knew that it had to be done but he didn’t want to do it—yet he wasn’t going to blubber about it either. Taelin could see that and her heart melted. She wanted to comfort him. She left her chair and crouched beside him, daring to reach out and touch the High King’s hand. It was innocent, she told herself.

His fingers were warm and soft. His nails manicured.

“Lady Rae—” Oh no! But then he pulled something golden out of his pocket. Something almost glowing. “I picked it up.”

It startled her, but not because it represented a sign from her goddess that she was being shamelessly inappropriate. In fact, she didn’t even see it as a symbol of Nenuln anymore. It was just a necklace with no special powers other than the sentimental fact that it had belonged to her grandfather. What amazed her was that he had rescued it and kept it for her.

“Oh…” she said.

“What?”

“Thank you.” She took it from him, then abruptly leaned forward and planted her mouth against his. She almost stopped there. She almost pulled back and left it at that. But she didn’t. She pushed her advantage. Kissed him again. Waiting to see if he would resist. When he didn’t, when she realized that he had actually begun to kiss her back, her body filled with heat.

It wasn’t wrong. The relationship between Caliph Howl and his witch queen was nothing official. It had never been recognized. Never been authorized by any church. No vows, no certificate; it meant nothing.

Thank gods she could still save him.

Her head was buzzing, maybe from the wine. And despite this breach in protocol, her head, her whole body was telling her this was the way to defeat Sena Iilool. She moved up on top of the High King, one leg on either side of his chair. She closed her eyes and smiled as Caliph’s lips worked down the side of her neck. She ground herself down hard against him.

It was moments later that he lifted her up off the deck and carried her back to his stateroom.

CHAPTER

31

Taelin woke up the next day pale and wretched. She couldn’t believe what she had done or that he had let her. And yet it had been just what she needed. She couldn’t help toying with the idea that maybe it could work … maybe it could last.

Impossible! She stayed in her room, pacing, staring out the porthole at faint wisps of vapor that passed for clouds, tearing at her fingernails with her teeth.

That was when she noticed the little silver patch on the underside of her wrist. There were two spots actually, directly over the blue shadow of her veins. Nothing to worry about. Right? After all, she had been