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For the first time in a while, Caleb manages to drink enough that he goes dizzy.
He tries to remember when he last felt this lightheaded, this soft around the edges. Hupperdook, he thinks. The drinking competition. Then he and Jester danced, and he—
He groans and falls back against pillows; the soft, fluffy pillows of the Kamaruth Inn. He’s not sure when they got back, or how late they stayed out after the evening’s fights, but it seems the revelry isn’t over yet. He can hear Fjord belting a sea shanty across the hall, Caduceus accompanying arrhythmically on his new bone flute, and a shrill, sweet voice piercing through—
“ Lebby. Take off your hat before you sleep, you’ll squash it.”
Small clawed hands grasp the ridiculous pointed brim and delicately tug Caleb’s new bycoket off his head. He drapes his arm over his face to hide the mess of sweat-damp hair clinging to his clammy drunken forehead. A foolish impulse—Nott has seen him much worse. And why shouldn’t she?
He moves his arm. She’s hovering over him, close, her edges shifting in the low lamplight. There’s a shade of concern in her glinting eyes that clears when he meets them. Then she leans back, away, away—settles on the edge of the bed, legs dangling. Straightens out her skirt.
She takes off her own hat and nests it over Caleb’s on the nightstand. The enormous brim reminds him strangely of her old doll mask. He pushes up on his elbow to watch her shrug out of the shadow of her Cloak of Elvenkind. She’s worn the hood up since they arrived in Rexxentrum; he’s barely seen her face these last three days. But even this side of the Ashkeepers she still wears her yellow Xhorhasian frock hidden underneath. Caleb’s eyes trace the intricate geometric ladder of ribbons that lace up the back, Nott’s shoulder blades shifting as she leans forward to tug off her muddy boots.
She’s getting ready for bed, Caleb realizes, thoughts molasses-slow. She’s getting ready for bed in his room. There’s a terrible pressure in his chest. When was the last time? It used to be so easy between them.
She looks back over her shoulder and he averts his eyes. She gets enough stares around here. But he feels her gaze fix on him, he prickles with goosebumps under her focus, so he lets himself return it.
There’s a long open moment between them, then—
“You went to see her,” Nott says, voice painfully gentle.
A lead weight falls through Caleb. “How did you—”
“You’ve been fidgeting with the letter in your pocket all week,” she says. “But you haven’t touched it today. And your books—you’re not wearing them, you hid them somewhere. Which means you’re willingly meeting someone strong enough to take them off you, and smart enough to want to.”
“You’re a good detective,” Caleb admits. He’s glad she didn’t follow him, spy on him. It would have been justified, but it would have hurt. He knows it should worry him, to hear that he’s so easy to read. Maybe it’s the drink going to his head, but he feels oddly comforted instead. Knowing she’s watching him so closely. It’s a warm feeling. Foolish.
“I’m the best,” Nott grins. Her teeth are—still yellow, but they look cleaner somehow, healthier, than when he met her. She’s been eating right. Still sinewy and tough-skinned, but there’s a new glow about her, a suppleness; a far cry from the bone-dry pallor of their months sleeping rough. Her swamp-dark hair is growing out thick and shiny, and she wears it in two neat braids, crowned with a wilting sprig of alyssum Yasha plucked from a public garden.
“Veth,” he says, quiet enough that he hopes she won’t hear.
“Hm?” she answers. And a moment passes between them where this feels normal: that he calls her Veth, and she answers.
Then it dissolves.
Caleb scrambles for a justification, an excuse, besides, sometimes I just want to say your name, to hear it, to hear how it sounds in my voice. Foolish.
“I was just wondering—when you were Veth, did you always braid your hair like that?”
She fidgets with the single mother-of-pearl button that hangs from a cord around her neck. The one he bought her in a rummage shop just weeks after they met, long before the Nein—long, long before he knew the first thing about her. She planned to steal it, he remembers, but he got a bad feeling from the shopkeeper, so he spent the fistful of copper they made off a con, and she stole their bread that night. It seemed important, though he didn’t know why at the time. He just wanted to—
“Yes,” Nott finally answers. “I know it looks silly on this body. But I like it.”
Caleb wants to tell her she’s beautiful. That she’s beautiful right now . He’s wanted to say it before, when she’s harsh with herself, but now he feels desperate to tell her. Not to comfort her, but just because it’s true—a truth threatening to overflow and spill between them, messy and foolish. He’s certain it would only hurt her. Certain it’s not what she needs to hear, not now. He swallows it down.
So he doesn’t say anything. He’s silent for a breath too long, tension winding taught until she turns her bright eyes off him, hand falling away from the button at her throat. The air between them goes stale.
“I’m going to wash up.”
She slips out of his room, bare feet absolutely soundless—he strains to hear them pad down the hall, wanting something to focus on besides his thudding heart, but Nott is too good at what she does.
Caleb knows she won’t come back tonight. Why would she? It was foolish to think they might curl beside each other as they used to, warm for a few hours in the shelter of their blind trust. They don’t need to anymore. He has a spell for that. She has a—
Husband.
Caleb presses his face into a downy pillow and whines like a child. The roof of his mouth tastes like good Rexxentrum ale.
He lets himself sink into selfish loneliness just for a moment, before he forces himself to sit up and methodically unlace his boots, tug off his tunic and stockings. When he rooms alone he normally sleeps in the buff—he overheats easily—but he hesitates when he reaches his underclothes. After a moment’s consideration (and a smell test) he strips off the shirt that reeks of sweat and alcohol, flinging it to the far side of the room, but keeps his threadbare breeches.
Caleb rolls back into bed, mumbling a cantrip to dim the lamps, but he doesn’t snuff them out; he leaves a low flame burning, to match the gentle foolish hope still flickering at the edges of his ale-soaked mind.
He dreams on the ebb of a shallow sleep. Half-dream, half-memory: the day he bought that button. He had wanted … he had wanted to reward her. Praise her. No, that’s not quite right. He wanted to recognize her, and what she did for him. He wanted to thank her, not just for petty theft or fighting off bandits, but simply for walking beside him. She was so generous with her loyalty and he was so hungry for trust.
And beyond that—if he presses against a bruised feeling that only sleep permits him to touch—he wanted to adorn her, with something that matched her, some gleaming thing, however cheap and inadequate. He thought she was beautiful then, too. Beautiful with her quick-draw crossbow, a swirl of dark cloak around a shadow-slim frame, rotten breath warm against the collar of his coat on a cold night.
A shadow slinks into the room, a clumsy creak of the door rousing him—or maybe she means for him to hear it, to humbly announce her entrance. She lets him hear the brush of her heels against the wood floor, the hushed rustle of covers shifting aside.
At first Caleb thinks he’s still remembering, but he’s never seen Nott quite like this: in a loose flannel nightshirt with flowers embroidered around the collar, hair damp and tucked behind behind her ears, smelling of inn soap.
She deftly conjures her own Mage Hand and snuffs the last lamp. Caleb feels her tug the quilt up and roll onto her side, facing him, but the room is pitch black. He’s intensely aware that her clever eyes can still see him.
Minutes pass before she speaks. “Did you and Astrid … you know …”
“No,” he cuts her off, face heating.
“... Fuck?” she finishes.
“ No .”
“Did she want to?”
“I think so.”
“Did you want to?”
He pretends it takes time to consider the question. “Yes.”
Nott goes quiet for a moment, and Caleb feels the mattress shift as she shuffles closer, before she says, “I’m sorry.”
It’s a disarming echo of Astrid’s words, but it feels so different. Why? Nott reaches out for his hand. Palm to palm.
It’s different because Nott believes him.
Caleb lets himself take her hand. Her narrow dexterous fingers fit between his. She tucks her head under his chin, and her breathing soon slows.
Caleb is foolish, he knows. But on the nightstand two foolish hats nestle together, hats that belong to foolish best friends, and beneath them a stack of books and papers Caleb almost understands.
He falls asleep thinking, however foolishly: I’ll solve the puzzle soon. I’ll call you Veth soon. I’ll earn the right.
They fall asleep sheltered.