again, kept his face still, tried not to let anything show. It was Ilsa he should be thinking of, not Tallia. And Van, who even now was chasing his way across rooftops, probably laughing at the guards who chased him, having his thrill. But Van was in trouble, more trouble than he knew, and Tallia could help Holden figure it out. Maybe Tallia was why he was in trouble. Business, this was business.
Tallia’s smile faltered and she led him on, silent now. They left the plaza and headed out into the delta, sparsely lit compared to the city and its surrounds so that every shadow was a threat. Tallia tried to take his hand again, but he kept it on the butt of his pistol. The delta wasn’t for the faint of heart even in daylight, worse in the dark. Holden had never been to the delta before, but he’d heard enough.
They passed drift-inns alight with torches and laughter, thick with the smell of rend-nut as it shredded the minds of those who smoked it. Night traders taking advantage of the cool, dealing in everything from fish to troupes of acrobats. He’d heard it said that everything could be found in the delta if you looked hard enough, and everything was for sale.
They passed an isolated yard full of cages of exotic animals. A big cat prowled one, spotted and striped, orange and yellow and black with a twitching tail and wild eyes. It brought him to a halt as he wondered if that was the sort they called a lion. I want to see lions, Ilsa had said to him once, when they’d still been bonded. A confession he’d had to drag from her when he’d demanded she want something for herself, demanded she struggle against the bond. He wondered if lions were still what she wanted, and he realized he had no idea, none at all. He didn’t know even if she knew what she wanted.
“Holden?” Tallia’s voice snapped him back to the narrow alley. “Are you all right?”
“Fine. How far?”
She didn’t answer straightaway, but moved closer into the faint light shed by the torch in the yard. The flickering light half-hid her face, made what he could see a tantalizing mix of swirling lines and moving shadows. No comforting straight lines, only curves. The way she looked at him—he turned away, back to the lion, or whatever it was, back to what reminded him of Ilsa, of his duty, what he’d promised. Because if Tallia kept looking at him like that, as though she liked what she saw, he was going to forget.
Her hand on his chin brought him back, turned him to face her again as she leaned up on tiptoe and kissed him, a briefest touch of lips that made not grabbing her and kissing her almost impossible. He clenched his fist against it, jerked his head away from the taste of warm sunlight and sultry afternoons.
Tallia pulled away, a hurt look in her eyes, then turned and began to lead the way again. Holden followed, unsure of what he was doing anymore, what he was feeling, who he was. That question had plagued him, worse and worse as the weeks had spun on since the bond had gone. The answer was he didn’t yet know who or what he was.
He hurried after Tallia, wanting to take her hand again, and not wanting to. When she stopped in the lee of a tattered shop that stank of fish, she kept from looking at him while she spoke. “There she is. Lone Queen, Josie’s renamed her. Been berthed here a few days.”
But Holden wasn’t looking at the ship. “Tallia, I—”
Her sharp glance stopped him. She was still for once, no bounce, no laugh ready to be laughed. “It’s not often a rack turns down an offered tumble. But you’re not some usual rack, are you? Different, you are, as different to them as the sun to the stars.”
“I’m sorry, I wish I could be who you wanted.” He did, and that tore at him, made guilt weigh a stone in him. He couldn’t work out what he was supposed to do with his freedom. Keep away from Tallia, if he wanted to keep his sanity and his wife.
Especially when she smiled at him as she did now, a smile just for him that seemed to light her up. “Don’t be sorry. That’s what I like about you. Look, come on. There’s Josie’s ship. You can tell