Working my skirt off my hips, I paused to throw a glare at her.
Pheolix glanced at Cebrinne. “You look just as worn out as she does. Wouldn’t have anything to do with the moray eel on the fish menu last night, would it?”
I stopped. My head swiveled slowly to look at him in deadened disbelief. “You knew what was on the menu?”
“Of course I did. Why do you think I didn’t request any for myself?”
Now in her underthings, Cebrinne also halted, premeditated murder in her eyes.
My stomach rolled. “Why didn’t you say something?”
Pheolix shrugged. “I had planned to, but then you went to leave and tried to kill me instead. Failed, though.”
“A mistake I won’t make again.”
“Here’s hoping.” Shirtless, he thrust his hands into his pockets and shrugged. “Try all you want. Anything that encourages you to touch me.”
“I’m going to be sick,” Cebrinne said, wading out to the water. She dove in, her outer layers packed in the canvas bag cinched over her shoulder, leaving me alone with Pheolix at the murky river’s edge.
I glared at him in disbelief, determined not to let my eyes wander over his hard chest or the inked lines that framed his abdominals. Smooth, liquid heat poured into my veins. “You’re disgusting.”
“Agreed.” He motioned to the water, the movement flexing a vein in his sculpted shoulder. “Shall we?”
I wrenched off the final layer of my dress, marching to the gray shallows. Tiny smelt fish darted away, vacating the water like fractured glass struck by a stone, little gray shards disappearing into the sludge.
Four days of swimming in this muck, then one more of swimming in the sea before we met Aegir in Paria.
Theia help me, I wasn’t sure if I’d survive another minutewith this Naiad.
“I’ve spent the last few days scouting.” Aegir slid his finger down a sketched map of the Parian colony. “There are a few passages here that are crumbled. I think they might be where the island surface connects internally to the sea. The underwater entrance is easy enough to find once you know where it is, but I haven’t found how Pheolix managed to pass through yet.”
“I bribed the Fates with indecent favors.”
“Pheolix,” I snapped. “Don’t lie about such things. The Fate of Truth will steal your soul.”
He shrugged. “Maybe she already did.”
Unable to look at his face without wanting to rip it off his skull, I glanced around the cave instead. Black-bear pelts lay in an overlapped circle around a stone fire bed, more of them stacked in the corners. Two large pots sat nearby, recently scrubbed clean. A pile of wood and a second pile of knives. An axe leaned against the rock beside an oil lamp near the back of the cave, one of its glass panes broken. Fishnets hung crudely from a jut in the stone, wavering in the sea-ward breeze.
I cocked a hip. “You’ve been busy, Aegir.”
“There’s a shipwreck not too far from here.” Hands on his hips, Aegir stood back and scrutinized his own map. He’d drawn it on the back of what looked like the lower corner of Cressi, thick ink lines visible through the parchment.
“Did you find any rum?” Pheolix asked.
We all glanced at him.
He smirked. “For medicinal purposes. Cleaning wounds or fire-starting.”
Aegir frowned back at his map. “Didn’t look.”
“Of course not,” Pheolix snickered.
“Let’s begin,” I said, clasping my hands together. “We only have three days. Thaan asked if we could be back in Calder for the Queen’s Starlit Bloom Masquerade, and he’s suspicious enough without us defying his requests.”
Cebrinne rolled her eyes as though she’d forgotten about the yearly spring ball. Aegir lifted a brow. “What’s a Starlit Bloom Masquerade?”
Pheolix wandered to the cavern edge. “It’s a pig show, Aeggy. All the farmers in Calder bring their prized heifers to the palace and the shiniest one gets a blue ribbon. It’ll be fun. You should come.”
