The Vampire & Her Witch

”This plan would never work for me...”

Devlin’s hands clenched into fists that were tight enough for his knuckles to turn white, and for a moment, he looked like he was trying to decide whether he should punch Albyn in the face or grab him by the collar to drag him to the Gilded Horns despite his protests. Maybe both.

”Lord Owain intends to name me Knight of Hurel Village during the coronation tomorrow,” Albyn said quietly, deliberately ignoring his companion’s obvious distress. ”If I’m missing when my name is called, it raises questions. Questions that lead to you, and to Jean, and to everyone else who’s supposed to be safely out of Lothian by then.”

”Hang the questions,” Devlin said, though he could already feel the argument slipping away from him.

In so many ways, the group of captains who had given up their ships to follow Lady Jocelynn and Lord Owain to Lothian March in the hopes of earning knighthood for themselves were the same. For the most part, they fought just as well as each other, led their men just as effectively, and faced the same challenges adapting to the way war was waged in the rolling foothills of Lothian March.

As far as Owain and most of the lords of the march were concerned, the men from Blackwell might as well be interchangeable. But in a few important ways, they were different, and the value Owain placed on Albyn for his role in rescuing Jocelynn from the Inquisition was a glaringly large difference.

Still, Devlin wasn’t about to give up on his old friend that easily.

”You think Owain’s going to bother hunting for one missing man when he’s busy crowning himself?” Devlin asked, unclenching a fist so he could poke Albyn in the chest with a finger. ”You’ve seen how he goes through knights and stewards. Kaefin, Bors, Hugo, Rain... You think he’ll care any more about you than he did for them?”

”I think Owain is the kind of man who notices when a piece is missing from his board,” Albyn replied flatly. ”And right now, I’m a piece he expects to be standing where he put me. If I’m not there, he’ll want to know why, and the first place he’ll look is wherever Lady Jocelynn’s people were last seen.”

Devlin opened his mouth to argue, but Albyn raised a hand to stop him.

”There’s another reason,” Albyn said, and his voice dropped lower still. ”She’s planning something.”

”Lady Jocelynn?” Devlin said as his heart sank like a dinghy with a hole through its keel.

”She hasn’t told me what it is,” Albyn said. ”But I’ve watched her every day since she came out of those dungeons, and I know what a person looks like when they’ve made peace with dying, Devlin. She’s got that look. That steadiness. Like she’s already said her goodbyes in her heart and is just waiting for the right moment to follow through.”

”I wasn’t there, but you saw her at the memorial,” Albyn added. ”Did she look like losing her sister broke her heart? Or did she look like she was ready to go sailing after her? Be honest.”

”She was heartbroken,” Devlin said, pursing his lips together as he forced himself to confront the thing he’d half seen beside the pyre, when Jocelynn looked like she wanted to step into the flames before pulling herself back. It had been a small thing, barely half a step, but he’d seen it, even if he’d pretended not to afterwards.

”She’s standing on the brink, Ablyn,” he admitted. ”But I don’t think she’s ready to step over the edge. There’s still time for her to turn back against the tide.”

”And what if the thing that’s holding her back is something she’s decided to do?” Albyn asked. ”She asked me for a knife, Devlin,” he said flatly. ”And a sheath she can strap to her thigh the way pearl divers do. What do you think she intends to do with that?”

The words settled between them like a stone dropped into still water.

”You think she’s going to try to kill him?” Devlin said. ”She’s been forced into this, and she’s only going through with it now so she can kill him when he’s alone and vulnerable. You really,” he said, swallowing heavily. ”You really think she’s going to try it?”

”I think she’s going to try something,” Albyn said. ”And whatever it is, if she’s going to have any chance of surviving it, she’ll need someone at her side who can get her out of the manor fast. Jean’s people are good, but they’re not fighters. And once the ceremony starts, there won’t be any Blackwell knights left in the building to protect her.”

”Because I’ll have taken them all to the Gilded Horns,” Devlin said heavily.

”Because you’ll have done your job,” Albyn corrected. ”The same way I’ll be doing mine.”

They stood there for a moment, two men who had sailed under the same flag for the better part of a decade, separated by a decision that neither of them could make for the other.

”You stubborn, sea-brained, eel-tongued, fatherless son of a,” Delvin fumed before he made himself stop. ”Damned fool is what you are, you know that, right?”

”I’ve been called worse,” Albyn said with the ghost of a smile. ”By you, as a matter of fact, I took us the wrong way round the Isle of Cael.”

”That was different,” Devlin muttered. ”We were stuck without wind for half a day but that’s not the sort of thing that gets a man killed.”

”Neither will this,” Albyn said, though the certainty in his voice didn’t quite reach his eyes. ”I’ve put my faith in Jean and his people before, when I needed to escape the Inquisition’s men to fetch Lord Owain for Lady Jocelynn. Without the Black Merchant’s network, I’d have been caught before I made it past the harbor gate. They came through for me then. They’ll come through again.”

”And if they don’t?”

Albyn was quiet for a long moment before he answered.

”Then I’ll do what any good sailor does when the ship goes down,” he said simply. ”I’ll make sure the ones who matter get to the lifeboats first.”

Devlin wanted to argue. Every instinct in his body screamed at him to drag Albyn out of this manor by the scruff of his neck and throw him in the back of a wagon, but he knew it would be pointless. Albyn had made his choice, and the hard truth was that his reasoning was sound. Without someone inside the manor who could act if things went sideways during the ceremony, Lady Jocelynn would be completely alone.

”You’d better not die,” Devlin said, and the roughness in his voice had nothing to do with the cold.

”I’ll do my best,” Albyn said, clasping Devlin’s forearm in the old way, grip to grip, the way sailors sealed a pact when there was no time for ink and parchment. ”Get our people out. That’s what matters tonight.”

”Our people,” Devlin repeated, tightening his grip. ”Yours too, you stubborn bastard.”

”Always,” Albyn said. And then he let go, turned on his heel, and walked back toward the sound of the Stag Feast without looking over his shoulder.