Someone else was at the table, no one Van Gast recognized. A young mainlander, a rack right enough with bells on his ankle, his dark hair loose and rakish like Van’s own, the clothes bright, garish even. Josie had her hand on his, spoke soft, slow words at him that Van Gast couldn’t hear but burned his gut nonetheless, made him hesitate, considering.
The game was gone, surely, blasted away with her ship. The game where they pretended hatred and laughed at the people who believed it. The whole business with the Remorians had surely ruined that game, that twist that they reveled in. Yet the whispers had started now, the bets on who would outclass who with the sword.
Her low, smoky voice became clearer, and he heard the words as he was surely meant to. “If you want to join my crew, you have to prove yourself. Kill the man standing behind me.”
Either the game wasn’t over, or it was no longer a game. Hard to tell but Van Gast’s little-magics, his trouble bone, told him no trouble.
Well, maybe a bit.
The young rack flicked his gaze up to Van Gast, flinched, and then flicked it back to her again. “But that’s—”
“I know very well who it is,” she interrupted. “If you can’t, or won’t, kill him, you’ll not get a place on my crew.”
“But you might get one on mine,” Van Gast said, and flung himself into the seat opposite her with a calculated dispassion that was entirely fake.
Joshing Josie to everyone else, Butterfly Josie to him, too slippery to be pinned, and he’d tried, very hard. She was grinning at him, the lopsided grin that made his heart race with the thrill of it, that always made him wonder which it would be this time—rob you to within an inch of your life, kill you without a second thought or give you the night of your life. He’d crossed her, though, betrayed her trust, and so right now that was more in doubt than ever, and his blood sang in his ears.
The stupid-but—thrilling thing to do, to want, to chase his Josie. She’d lured him here, was grinning at him, and she hadn’t tried to kill him. Yet. Always a positive sign.
The young rack faded into the background as Van Gast studied Josie. It was all he could manage not to grab her there and then, kiss her right now in front of everyone. If he did that, he’d lose his chance for sure, so he held on to himself with an effort and watched her closely instead, drank her in, the changes to her that he’d not had the chance, time or light to see at Bilsen, and too, the sameness of her.
The braids in her hair had gone, only the Gan family braid of black and gold remaining. All the little bits of silk and shells and mementos that would remind her of him, of cons they’d run, days and nights they’d spent, of who’d they’d been together, were gone, as though she’d erased him, wanted to blot how he’d hurt her from memory. Instead, her hair, burned white-blond by the sun, lay in a relaxed plait over her shoulder.
Slippery Butterfly Josie, who never gave up till the end of the chase, who had slipped away from him, stolen his ship—and left him with a wedding dagger and a faraway, lopsided grin just asking to be kissed, chased, caught. The cool weight of the glass dagger in his shirt reassured him. Play the game—pretend the hatred, where all knew how much they wanted to kill each other, how much they hated each other, were desperate to out-rack each other, and it was a lie, a con, the biggest scam of all. Then the nights they were alone—it gave Van Gast a flutter in his stomach to think on those. Josie was here, waiting for him to catch her, to show her, love her. He wouldn’t entertain any other possibility.
A shade thinner than she had been, gaunter around the cheeks and hollow at the eyes, but still built like a dancer, not a fighter. All smooth, hard muscle and soft curves. Never one thing or the other, at least to him. The grin was the same, dimpling one cheek in a way that made Van Gast think of naughty imps. Sexy naughty imps.
The eyes though—he wasn’t sure about the eyes, the gray of a thousand fathoms of sea, of waves before a storm. Before, they’d