“That’s her? I didn’t expect her to look so normal,” she whispers loudly.
“Come on,” he says, tugging on her hand.
“Wait—can she understand us?”
“Yes.”
She falls into another fit of drunken giggles as she staggers in. The prince almost appears apologetic as he shuts the door behind her.
My cheeks scald as I try very hard not to listen to the murmuring, giggling, and other shuffling and creaking sounds permeating from his room, but there’s little else for me to focus on. Couldn’t he go somewhere else for that?Anywhere else?It’s maybe half an hour later when the prince, with his blanket draping his shoulders, is shuffling the rather dejected-looking girl out of his room and out of the chambers.
I shift my head toward the opposite wall as he turns, expecting him to go straight back to his chambers. My heart sputters when he makes a beeline for me and flops down on the other end of the sofa.
He turns his head in my direction, face shadowed by the vines hanging in his window. I can still make out the glazed sheen to his eyes.
“Nought.” He nods his head in acknowledgment. The blanket wrapping his shoulders gives him the appearance of someone younger, boyish, not at all like the child-murdering witch I know he is. “What did you get up to today?”
I work a swallow but remain quiet and still hoping he’ll just leave if I don’t bother to engage with him.
“You look nervous.” He arches a single brow, head cocking to the side. “Are you…scared of me?”
“No,” I say much too abruptly to be convincing.
“Really?”
“I’m not scared of you,” I say with a defiant tilt of my chin.
He suddenly reaches forward, and I startle back. The smirk pulling at his lips tells me that scaring me was his whole aim and I narrow a glare that promptly fades into horror as he slips his hand in between the cushions of the couch.
He tugs out the first knife I stashed there, only inches from my collected bag of supplies that also most importantly hosts my locket. “Then what’s this?” he asks, twirling the knife between his fingers.
I open and close my mouth, panic snagging any rebuttal I could possibly think of in my throat. He chuckles, unfettered, as he slips the knife back between the cushions and my brow wrinkles.
“You’re not worried?”
“Worried about what?”
“That I’ll slit your throat while you’re sleeping?”
He grins, flashing those two mischievously crooked teeth. “You could try. But it’s harder than it looks.”
Funny because it didn’t look hard forhimat all. “You don’t know me.”
“True.” He drops the blanket, revealing a bare chest as he curls a hand to pick at his fingernails. I’m not sure he’s wearing anything at all under that blanket. “Maybe I wouldn’t mind?”
“Youwouldn’t mind?If I slit your throat?”
He shrugs and turns his head to flash me a quick wink. “Make it quick?”
He doesn’t think I’m capable.“I could do it.”
He scrutinizes me for such a long moment it draws a flush from my cheeks. “Is there anything that you need?”
A rope. Enough food to last me weeks. I can’t say that, and I should have those things by tomorrow. I shake my head.
“Alright then, Nought. This is goodnight,” he sighs as he tugs himself to his feet. “See you tomorrow.”
He turns back at the door with a wry grin. “Or maybe not if you decide to put me out of my misery. I’ll leave the door unlocked in hopes.”
