Torsten looked at Felix, who gave him a nod of encouragement. “It’s okay. We can trust her. And we do both really need a bath.”
There was a brief knock, the hall doors opened, and, led by the servant they’d seen earlier, no less than ten maids began making their way through to the bath, each toting two buckets of steaming water.
“How did you get the water heated so fast—” Felix began.
“Having a house filled with elementals can result in some amazing things,” Audrey offered casually as she plopped down in a fine leather chair by the fire. “Off you go now,” she said, waving her hand at Torsten. “You’ll find a door also leads directly to the bedchamber, and there’ll be fresh clothes there for you in a bit.”
Torsten grunted, and after a final look at Felix, headed off through the archway.
“Is that bandit holding you against your will?” Audrey asked quietly as Felix moved to join her. “Has he hurt you? Because handsome or not, I can make him dead before you can count to ten.”
Felix laughed, touching her hand as he settled on the floor at her feet. “Thank you, Audrey, but no. I’m not Torsten’s captive—at least, not anymore—and he hasn’t hurt me. He’s done quite the opposite.”
Audrey studied his eyes closely for moment, nodded, then fiddled with the strap of her eye patch before sitting back, crossing her legs and propping her elbow on the armrest. “Very well,” she said. “I believe you. Not because of your words, but because of how you look at one another. The eye never lies. Now tell me everything.”
The maids began streaming out with their empty buckets. “Was that ample water for two baths, Winchester?” she called.
“Yes, Miss Audrey,” the liveried man replied with a bow. “I’ll see to their clothing now.”
“And we’ll have wine now. Three glasses, if you will.”
“Yes, ma’am.” He went to the sideboard, removed an etched glass decanter and matching goblets from the cabinet beneath, and, bringing it to them, poured.
“Is Merric okay?” Felix asked as Winchester closed the door behind him. “Is he around?”
“I haven’t seen him since the day after you were taken,” Audrey admitted. “He and the others were found on the road and brought back. They were all hurt, but no one died, except for you,” she scoffed. “Merric was badly injured, worse than the others. He’d taken an arrow to his leg, on top of his other injury. He couldn’t walk when he left.”
Felix felt a burdensome swell of guilt rising in his chest and dropped his head. “Oh, Merric.”
Audrey leaned forward in her chair. “‘Oh, Merric’ is right. He was a mess. He believed you were dead—we all believed you were dead—and that it was his fault for not protecting you.” Her blue eye gleamed. “So what did happen? Have you been off playing house with your bandit all this time? Where have you been?”
It was so strange to be sitting with Audrey in a fine parlor, in a fine house, chatting and drinking wine. Their time together had been short, but he felt a bond with her—a strong bond formed during their dangerous quest to save the queen—and as a consequence, he trusted her as much as he’d ever trusted anyone.
It was also strange to have a story to tell, an exciting one, where he, for once, was the main character. And Felix hardly knew where to begin. “Well, when we left that day I was terribly worried, about Merric’s leg, about our relationship and where it was leading—”
“Stop,” Audrey said, holding out a hand. “We don’t have time for the ‘thoughts and feelings’ version. Tell me ‘the stable next door is on fire, but no one will leave to go fight it until they’ve heard the story’ version.”
Felix blinked. “Okay. So I was kidnapped by bandits,” he began. “But they didn’t kill me. Obviously. And I wasn’t hurt, unless you count being carried kind of upside down on a horse far longer than I liked. But the bandit king took a liking to me, and they realized I wasn’t at all who they thought I was, and the whole thing never should have happened. And so I became his, um, flautist.”
Audrey rested her chin on her hand and looked at him quizzically. “Did you say bandit king?”
Felix coughed. “Well, it turns out there’s no such thing. But I didn’t know that at first. At first, I was afraid. But soon I realized these bandits weren’t that bad. I mean, Torsten did make me spend the night chained up in the snow, but then he gave me his fur,” he said, coming to his feet and holding the pelt open to show her, “and his bandana.
“And after we robbed that wagon, we gave all the coin to the poor, and I found out they’d been stealing to feed the hungry villagers, and that they were really fruit bandits, not bad at all. But then the real bad bandits came to the camp, and Gethrin—now that’s a really, really bad bandit, but he’s dead now—not only threatened Torsten with troubling information, he tried to bargain it to get in my pants,” Felix continued with a shudder. “But Torsten protected me and tried to bring me home. But then our boat was boarded by a pirate who’d been hired to kill us. He was horrible, Audrey, but weirdly polite at the same time, even when he made us walk the plank, like in the stories. Oh, and he was a Water, like you,” he continued breathlessly. “So—”
“Stop!” Audrey yelled, sitting up straight in her chair. “What was this pirate’s name?”
“Captain Quinn,” Felix answered quickly. “Ellison Quinn. And what a piece of work he was.”
Audrey’s face split into a wide grin, and she held a palm briefly over her mouth to stifle a laugh. “Ellison,” she said fondly. “He’s my brother.”
“What?” Felix gasped. “That’s impossible.” But then he remembered how blue Quinn’s eyes had been, and how they’d seemed a bit familiar to him at the time. “My Gods!” he exclaimed, peering at Audrey’s eye closely. “Your brother tried to kill us, Audrey! Torsten and I could be fish food right now because of him!”
“But how was he? Was he well?” Audrey asked, shrugging off Felix’s exclamations. “He’s always been abysmal at correspondence, and I worry when I haven’t heard from him in months.”
“How was he?” Felix asked. “Well, let’s see. He was murderous, heartless, a thief—” He stopped, dropping the fingers he’d been using to count all the bad things about Ellison Quinn, then shook his head. Audrey wasn’t responsible for her brother’s actions, and he knew well how it felt to worry about someone you love. “He was also annoyingly good-looking to be such a horrible person. And he seemed in high spirits, if that helps.”
Audrey nodded. “It does. Good. You sure don’t want to be around my brother when he’s in low spirits.”
“Does it get worse than him trying to murder Torsten and me?”
She rolled her eye. “Ellie’s not so bad.”
“I’m going to politely disagree and move on,” Felix said, “because your brother’s murder attempt, oddly enough, is not the worst thing to have happened since you saw me last, and those things are why we’re here.”
Audrey blinked the reminiscence from her eye, and then nodded for him to continue.
Felix told how they’d returned to the camp to the horror of Gethrin’s massacre, and how, in its aftermath, he’d been compelled to go to Gethrin. “And I wasn’t there a minute before he was bragging about a letter he’d written, bragging about conspiring with Torsten’s father and the guildmaster against the queen. That letter was the proof I needed. And I got it.”
Audrey had listened patiently and carefully throughout, but at the news of the guildmaster’s involvement, she visibly stiffened. “Bellamy said there’s been a steady increase in calls for guardian protection over the last few months, because of bandits,” she offered. “She also mentioned the guildmaster wanting to increase the number of students training at the guild and asking more coin for it. And now you say this may be some elaborate swindle being pulled? It’s a good thing Vivid and Scorch left when they did, or they might have found themselves forced into service at the guild by royal command, to investigate the McClintocks.”
“
No, Audrey. Not McClintocks plural,” Felix admonished. “I want that to be perfectly clear. No matter what the guildmaster has gotten himself into, I don’t believe for a second Merric knows anything about it.”
She looked unconvinced. “Merric is McClintock’s son.”
“And he’s also my friend, and a good man,” Felix maintained. “I can’t believe he knows anything about his father’s dealings, or he’d have put a stop to it. I won’t allow his character to be questioned. And I need you to back me up on this with the queen. Please, Audrey.”
She relaxed back into her chair. “Running with bandits is a good look on you,” she said, after a thoughtful pause. “You’re not the boy you were when we were last together.”
Felix fiddled self-consciously with the bandana around his neck. “You can blame that on Torsten, I think.”
“I think the credit belongs to you.” She clasped her hands together. “I’ll back you up on Merric, so rest easy on that while you tell me the plan I know is knocking around in that clever head of yours. Best not to burden royalty with a problem without also offering a solution.”
Felix laid out his plan in great detail, and by the time he reached the part that concerned Queen Bellamy, Audrey was reaching for the servant’s bell. “Send word to Bellamy,” she told Winchester when he appeared. He was flanked by two maids, each with a stack of clothes and several pairs of footwear, and they hurried through with them to the bedchamber. “Tell her I request her presence as soon as possible. Tell her it’s urgent.”
“Yes, Miss Audrey,” Winchester answered as the maids came scurrying back. “Right away.”
Audrey turned to Felix with a quirk of her brows as the door closed, and he couldn’t help but see the family resemblance now that he knew it was there. He wondered how it came to pass that Audrey became an assassin and her brother a pirate—they must have had interesting parents— but he decided those questions were for another day.
“The queen will come soon?” he asked. “Truly?”
“She always comes when I call,” Audrey replied casually. “But she doesn’t come running, so I don’t expect she’ll be here for another hour or so. Why don’t you join your bandit and get cleaned and dressed?”
“Thank you,” Felix said, pulling her into a hug when she stood.
She patted him awkwardly on the back before quickly pulling away. “I’m glad you’re alive,” she said, turning to leave. “Hopefully, after you bathe, you’ll actually smell as if you are.”
Felix smiled until the door closed behind her, crossed beneath the archway into the tiled bathing chamber, where Torsten was only now stepping into an oversized porcelain tub. Gods, he was beautiful naked. “You waited for me?” he asked. There were four tubs in the room, two large ones situated side by side, and two child-sized, and he marveled at how he’d ever ended up surrounded by such opulence as he began shimmying out of Alex’s trousers.
Torsten dunked his head beneath the water, then leaned back against the rim, his eyes on Felix. “Of course I waited. I wanted to hear what your friend had to say.”
“You heard everything, then?” Felix asked, stripping off the remainder of his clothes and trailing his fingers through the water, which remained almost too hot. Torsten was so near, and so deliciously naked, and in his mind’s eye he pictured stepping into the tub with him, lowering himself onto his lap, covering his mouth with his and—
Dirty water splashed onto his face. “Get in and stop looking like that,” Torsten said with a laugh. “I want you, too, Flautist, but we need to bathe. So bathe,” he continued, dropping the remaining bar of lavender soap from the shelf between them into Felix’s water.
Blushing fiercely, Felix lowered himself into the water.
“Your friend is not only Quinn’s sister, but an assassin, if I had to wager,” Torsten continued.
“I know Audrey to be a woman of many talents,” Felix said. “Lucky for us, Queen Bellamy agrees.”
“You’ve met her before, haven’t you? The queen?”
“You know I’ve met her,” he admitted. “She gave me the magic flute.”
Torsten gaped. “You were serious? I thought you were joking when you said that.”
Felix dunked his head, scrubbing his fingers vigorously through his mass of hair. “I wasn’t joking,” he replied. “Where else would I acquire a magic flute?”
“But you didn’t say anything,” Torsten countered quizzically as he scrubbed. “Why didn’t you say something when we brought you to the camp and called you a princeling?”
“Because I’m not a princeling,” Felix continued, soaping up his hands and beginning to wash his face.
“Yet you’re friendly enough with the Queen of Viridor for her to give you a magic flute?” Torsten asked pointedly. “And you didn’t try to use that to your advantage? You could have bargained for a ransom. Why didn’t you?”
“I’m not really sure,” Felix admitted. It would have made sense, but at the time, it hadn’t occurred to him to even consider that he would be important enough for anyone to pay coin for his safe return. He told Torsten as much before he dunked again, then moved on to scrub at the rest of his body.
“Audrey dropped everything to help you just now,” Torsten said to him quietly. “Harold had to tell your friend Merric you were dead the day you were taken, to stop him from coming after you, and not a one of my people balked for a single moment about risking their lives to rescue you.” He reached out his hand, laying it on the rim of Felix’s tub, and Felix laid his hand over it. “You’re more important than you think you are, Felix,” he said earnestly, “to more people than you think.”
Felix looked away as he felt his face flush violently. “You’re just impressed because the queen gave me a magic flute,” he said shyly.
“Maybe,” Torsten said. “Maybe because everything about you is impressive.” He turned his hand over and fitted his fingers with Felix’s, lifting an eyebrow suggestively.
Felix laughed, swatting Torsten’s hand away. They finished bathing, wrapped one another’s warm bodies in soft towels, and went hand in hand into the bedchamber, where an assortment of clothes and footwear were laid out upon a dusky pink couch. Felix laughed in delight when he saw all the black leather. Even though Audrey was no longer with the assassins, it seemed her affinity for their customary attire hadn’t changed.
As Torsten held up a pair of black leather trousers with a frown, Felix pulled his on with an excited squeak. They were skintight and hugged his ass, and the matching top was similar to the one Audrey wore, sleeveless, stitched down the center, and a snug fit against his lithe frame. He looked happily at Torsten, who’d managed to get his pants on, but was struggling with the ties on his soft leather cuirass. Felix tugged it more firmly over his shoulders and smoothed it down, then attended to the ties with care. When finished, he turned his attention to their boot choices, and while bending to study them for size, heard Torsten make a strange, low growl. He spun to face him as Torsten’s eyes shot back up from where they’d been fixated on his backside.
“What is it?” Felix asked, looking down at his body self-consciously. “Do I look silly?”
Torsten shook his head. “No,” he announced, a little too loudly. “No. You look good.” He was blushing, just a little. “We should get on our boots and go. Before we get … sidetracked.”
Felix admired his bandit’s good looks and supple build as they crossed the room, watching the way his muscles moved beneath the tight leather, and Torsten was appreciating him in kind. In fact, they were both so busy gazing at one another that they nearly collided with Audrey as they stepped through the archway.
“I was just coming for you,” she said, eying them both from head to toe and clearly satisfied with their appearance. “Glad to see everything fits,” she continued as she led the way into the parlor. “You clean up well, bandit. I can almost see where Felix would forgive you for kidnapping him.”
Felix pushed back a slew of damp curls that had f
allen over his forehead. “Thank you for the clothes, Audrey. Did you just have these lying around, or do you have a tailor stashed around here somewhere?”
“Thank Bellamy,” she said. “She insisted the students wear uniforms.”
Felix laughed. “And you decided to dress them as assassins.”
Audrey looked insulted. “The Assassins’ Hollow does not have the monopoly on black leather. I do.” She pushed back a loose strand of her hair. “By the way, Bellamy sent back word.”
Torsten stepped forward and offered his hand to her. “Thank you for your help, Audrey, and your hospitality.”
Audrey looked past him to Felix with a perplexed expression. When Felix smiled, she sighed and accepted Torsten’s hand, giving it a firm shake. “If Felix wasn’t so enamored with you, I’d slit your throat for causing him so much trouble,” she sneered.
“Audrey,” Felix whispered.
Torsten cleared his throat nervously, but then he nodded. “Perfectly understandable.”
“And if you hurt him again,” she continued, her voice venomous, “there will be no more warnings.”
“Audrey, stop.”
She turned from Torsten and patted Felix on the head, a strange dose of affection. “I like him,” she declared. “He takes death threats a lot better than Merric did when I told him the same thing.” Felix gawked. “Now, I have eyes telling me there’s near a dozen armed bandits in the trees a few hundred paces from here. Are they yours or do I need to kill them?”
“They’re mine. Ours,” Torsten answered quickly. “We’re all that’s left after Gethrin’s killing spree. I’d like permission for them and the horses to shelter here tonight, if that would be acceptable.”
Audrey barely hesitated. “They must leave their weapons,” she began, going for the servant’s bell and ringing it, “and I want your word they’ll keep out of sight while Bellamy is here. She likes to think she’s inclusive, but I’m certain an estate full of bandits would put her on edge. You know how delicate royalty can be. We have another ten men coming,” she said, turning to address Winchester as he entered. “Five of the smaller rooms on the second floor should suffice, but have baths prepared for all—I’m assuming they’re at least as filthy as these two were—and notify the kitchen and the stables. Can you think of anything else?” she asked, turning back to Torsten.
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