Page 123 of Bitter Burn
“Good. And don’t forget to rest afterward,” she admonishes. “Also, I brought you something.”
“I love gifts,” I say tiredly. Petitcrieu, finally repatriated from Manhattan, snuffles in sleepy agreement from her bed under my desk. She also has a bed by the window, two beds in the apartment, and a bed by the front desk downstairs, as she’s taken to following Ms. Lim around the club, drawn away from my side by the sound of clinking keys. She has approximately a hundred and seventeen toys littered between here and the garden, because I can’t seem to stop buying them.
Nimue leans forward and sets something on my desk. A slim book bound in yellow leather, with a title in peeling gold letters debossed on the front. The Tragicall Story of Tristram and Iseult of Lyonesse.
“I thought you’d find this edifying,” says my business partner.
A small needle of amusement manages to pierce the gray haze surrounding me these past two weeks. “My mother’s family was Cornish. I’m very aware of the legends we share our names with.”
“Quite,” Nimue says. She looks like she’s fighting back a smile.
I open the front cover and see hand-painted endpapers. Hazel and honeysuckle, a delicate pattern repeated over and over, bright green and pale pink. I run my fingertips over one of the honeysuckle petals, feeling the negligible ridge of the paint. Something hums through my fingers, almost like electricity, almost like sound, but not quite either.
My imagination more likely than not. My dreams these days are strange.
“I’ll give it a read sometime,” I say diplomatically.
“Good.” She seems almost on the verge of laughter now.
“What?”
She gives me a look like you know what, but I genuinely don’t.
“You were like this before too,” she finally explains.
“Before what?” When she doesn’t answer, I say as I push away from the desk and stand, “You’ve been with your husband too long. You’re speaking in riddles.”
“That’s a little rich coming from the man who engraved quarto optio on the inside of his lovers’ rings,” she croons.
I study her a moment with narrowed eyes. It’s not out of the realm of possibility that Tristan or Isolde told her about the engravings, but it’s also not incredibly likely.
She’s clearly enjoying herself now. “But what can it mean? What is this mysterious fourth option?”
I continue to look at her. Mistrustfully.
“When diplomacy or war won’t do, the president turns to the third option: covert action. But what does Mark Trevena turn to? What does he do when the third option leaves him with a husband to bury and no hope of making amends with the dead?” A smile spreads across her face, fine lines bracketing her mouth. Her eyes sparkle with mischief. “Oh, I know. He decides to burn it all down.”
“To the ground,” I confirm, but my eyes are slitted now. I haven’t told anyone but Melody what quarto optio means to me. “And how do you know this again?”
Her brows lift in a picture of angelic benevolence. “I’m a good friend, Mark. That’s how I know things. And that’s also how I know this: you’re absolutely right. You should burn it all to the ground. Today, if possible.”
I gesture to the folder in front of me, the latest from Lox and Andrea about the Scales and their possible whereabouts. “That’s what I’m trying to do.”
“Great,” she says brightly and gets to her feet. “I hope you enjoy the book. It’s expensive, though, the only known edition in the world. I’d keep it in the safe for now.”
She takes a few steps toward the door, and then she looks back at me. “You know, when I told you that good rulers were merciful, I never meant that mercy only flowed one way. You deserve mercy too.”
“Me. Mark Trevena. Deserve mercy.” I stare at her.
“Yes,” she says.
She’s wrong. I shake my head, ready to argue, but she holds up a hand.
“Consider that I’m right. Consider that you’ll never be able to temper power with mercy if you don’t know how it feels to receive it. If you don’t humble yourself enough to receive it.”
I make a dry, broken noise that’s supposed to be a laugh as I wave at myself. “You don’t consider this humbled?”
A look that could etch steel. “A humble person doesn’t reject what fate has given them.”
