second time today you’ve thrown something at me.” He dropped into a chair. “Sorry about the leg. I was distracted and I missed a parry. Those longswords are heavy. Where were you when it happened?”
“Alone in the corridor. Could have been worse.”
His grin faded. “And it’s going to be, I’m sorry to say. You have about ten minutes before the vulture gets here.”
Judah’s pleasant warmth evaporated. “They sent for Arkady? For a stupid bump on the leg?”
“Elban and the Seneschal were watching from the sidelines. Why do you think I was distracted?”
“I assumed there was a girl involved. Theron says you have a new one.” She took another drink from the wine bottle, enjoying the way his cheeks flushed. “I want the Seneschal to evaporate. I want them all to evaporate. Do you think Theron has some weird thing in his workshop that will do that? An unpleasant-person evaporator?”
“You’re the witch. Cast a spell.” Gavin’s blush had faded. He leaned over and took the bottle from her. “Where did you get this?”
“I cast a spell.”
“If you can make bottles of wine appear by magic, I’ll marry you instead of Elly.”
“No, thank you. Three’s a crowd and four’s a bloodbath. Going to tell me about her?”
Gavin drank long, and passed the bottle back. He pushed himself to standing and crossed to the table, his left leg dragging. As he piled most of the food left on the tray into a massive sandwich, he said, “I saw your special courtier friend on the way up here, by the way. He said to send his regards, and he hopes you’re well, all of that.” Judah made a rude noise, and Gavin laughed. “Oh, the lady does not reciprocate his affections! Brutal.”
“It does get so tedious, the constant stream of suitors humiliating themselves at my feet. And you’re avoiding the question.”
The door opened. Suddenly the room was full of people: the Seneschal, dressed as always in somber gray with an expression to match, and Arkady Magus, who they called the vulture because he was bony and hunched and they hated him. Accompanying the old man was a slender, bespectacled man Judah had never seen before. He wore his straw-blond hair back in a queue the way Arkady did, but the resulting tail wasn’t very long. If he was a magus, he was new at it.
“Your Lordship,” Arkady said in the fawning tone that was broken glass on Judah’s nerves. The loose skin under his chin wobbled faintly with each word. “I came as soon as I heard.”
“Heard what?” Gavin was curt. “I’m fine.”
“Better to be safe,” the Seneschal said calmly. The Seneschal was always calm.
“I walked here, up a hill and approximately forty flights of stairs. I’m fine.”
“Nevertheless, my lord,” Arkady said. “A minor injury can hold hidden dangers.”
Meanwhile, the stranger hovered in the background, holding Arkady’s satchel in addition to a second one that must have been his own. New apprentice, then. It was about time. Arkady had been ancient when they were children and he wasn’t getting any younger. His skin was an unhealthy yellowish gray and his hair was thin and brittle-looking. The idea of him dying brought Judah great pleasure.
Gavin looked at her, grimly resigned. “I don’t care,” she said, although she did.
The Seneschal coughed meaningfully. How obscure this all must have seemed to Arkady’s poor apprentice (who, in Judah’s opinion, looked a bit dazed). They couldn’t treat Gavin’s leg without treating Judah’s, because his leg would keep hurting as long as hers did. Treating Judah would require explanations, and explanations were most definitely not allowed. A fun corner they’d backed themselves into. She would enjoy watching them squirm in it.
Flinty-eyed, Arkady glanced at his apprentice. “I left my coat in the retiring room. Go fetch it.”
“Have a page show you the way,” the Seneschal said.
“I remember,” the apprentice said, and left.
Then it was only Arkady and the Seneschal and Judah and Gavin. The two men were the only ones outside of the family who knew about the bond. Judah felt Gavin press a thumbnail against the pad of his first finger. The simplest and oldest of their signals: a nod, a wink, a hello. An acknowledgment that they both existed, that they were who they were, and nobody else was.
“Quickly,” the Seneschal said. “Before he returns.”
“Show me, girl,” Arkady said.
Judah stood, hiked up her skirt, and unhooked the legging she wore beneath it. Gavin had seen her leg plenty of times; she didn’t care if the Seneschal did, and