Anna stood, tail touching lightly to Kit’s as she left.
The door closed with a thud.
Awkward silence was left in her wake, but as Nick finished the bowl of oats, he found it bothered him little. The fuzziness of his body made its way quickly into his mind. Kit replaced the empty bowl with a ceramic cup full of a murky green liquid. “Tea. An especially bitter brew. Kits love it, and I thought you might…appreciate it.”
Nick drank the tea for no other reason than he wanted something hot to warm his insides. It was bitter. And it was annoyingly pleasant. He refused to say so.
“What’s going to happen now?” Nick asked. He had no intention of capitulating to anything, but there wasn’t going to be anything he could reasonably do while aboard the ship with Kit to restrain him. He had to either wait until Adonis found him or wait until they were close enough to land to make his own escape. That opened a whole can of worms about finding his way back to Vi’s, but so long as he followed the coastline, he’d get there eventually. He’d worry about it when the time came.
Kit poured himself tea and hesitantly sat in the chair next to the bed. “We will be aboard Captain Hin’s ship for a month. Once we reach our port, we’ll transfer to horses and ride inland to Aridia, which should take only a score or more days. We can’t go through the mainland with the rebels raiding any ship that dares to travel the Dia River, so we’re sailing around to the northern border.”
Aridia. So they were heading to Jasper’s homeland, where there was a civil war of some sort going on, for Nick to do a job that they’d specifically tried to abduct one of Vi’s students for.
“Kit…” Nick’s head swam, the effect of the drugs coming over him in a wave. “I can’t do anything magical.”
“You have seen what will happen if you do not do your part.” Kit’s gaze dropped, as if he couldn’t bring himself to meet Nick’s eyes. “It will be the same in Aridia. But if you do the job willingly, you will be treated well. I can speak to them. Make them understand that you respond better to coaxing than coercion.”
Nick’s eyelids grew heavier with each blink. “You’re the one doing the coercing.”
“It will be one like me in Aridia too.”
Nick slumped. Kit caught him by the shoulder, stopping him from falling out of the bed. Nick’s head lulled to the side under its own weight. Kit carefully guided him under the blankets.
“May I know your name?” Kit’s voice came to him from far away. Nick didn’t know if he was dreaming or not, and he didn’t know if he answered.
Chapter Seven
Nick woke to many voices. He tried to tune them out. Stay in the hold of whatever drugs had kept him asleep. The twisting in his stomach didn’t let him, and he rolled over to squint across the room. A handful of children with swishing tails sat around the table, each focusing on individual slates, white chalk in hands. Mini, the child who had encouraged Kit to smack him with his tail, was the smallest of the bunch. Kit stood behind him, studying his slate.
“Good,” Kit said, and moved to the next child. He went to each in turn, offering either a compliment or further instruction, and then picked up a book from the table and opened it to a page near the start. “Which stars do we follow for a northern heading?”
Nobody answered.
Kit looked up from his book to find the children all staring in the same direction. Kit followed their gazes to Nick. Kit glanced over him and turned back to the kids. “Tonight, I want everyone during their watch to pick out our northern guide. The bow.” Kit placed the book on the table. “Memorise the pattern. Draw it on your slates to help.”
They all did as told, packed up the slates carefully in cotton wrap and placed them in a trunk, amongst books, extra slates, feathered quills and inkpots. They all cast looks at Nickas they left, but none of them spoke to him. When the door shut behind the last of them, Kit approached. He studied his face first, Nick guessed to gauge how alert he was. Nick would rate that on a very low scale himself, and he wished it even lower still. The nausea worsened every second.
“Toilet?” Kit asked.
“Tea.”
Kit’s head bobbed, and he set about brewing it. Nick sat upright, swinging his legs out over the edge of the bed. He still wore the loose shorts and shirt from the night he was taken. “How long now?”
“You last asked me that two hours ago,” Kit answered. “It’s been two days.”
Two days. Two days and Nick was still here.
Kit peeked at him, clearly seeing his troubled look. He didn’t comment on it. “If you are feeling well enough, it would do you good to come up on deck for fresh air. The waves are calm.”
Nick accepted the tea, the bitter leaves energising his mind. It helped with the nausea, lessening the need to curl into a ball and wish for unconsciousness. “Let’s do that,” Nick said. He flinched as he stood but didn’t allow any other reaction under Kit’s concerned gaze. It was so irritating. Kit seemed genuinely worried, genuinely sorry that Nick was injured, yet he was the one who hurt him. And Nick could tell that Kit would do what he needed to keep him on board too. If that meant inflicting more hurt, then more hurt was going to come his way.
Kit brought him a change of clothes; trousers, shirt and boots, alongside thick socks. “I will wait outside the door. Knock when you are changed.” Kit hesitated in the doorway, casting a long look over his shoulder to Nick. “There are no weapons in here.”
“Shaving knife.”
“I removed it.” Kit scowled. “And good thing I did, you near as cut open your own throat with it.”
Nick didn’t get the chance to respond; Kit slipped out too fast. He scowled at the closed door before letting his gaze wander across the solid wooden furniture of the room.No weapons. Sure. Nick bet after the oversight with a shaving knife being left in the bathroom basin, Kit had carefully searched his rooms for anything else sharp. Even if Nick had, in his drugged state, decided the weapon had best be used to shave rather than escape.
