Page 48 of Stealing Tink

“What about a name for Tink here?” asks Acel, nudging me in the shoulder. The touch is friendly and welcome and evokes a smile.

I don’t miss the way the Nomad’s eyes lock in on the gesture.

“Oh, I’ve got one,” says Acel, holding up his hand as if tapping an invisible fork against a glass.

The Nomad and I exchange a look, and I know he’s remembering the man from the tavern, waiting for me to call Acel unoriginal.

I grab my quill and with a grin write, I love it.

From the end of the table where the Nomad sits, I hear the faintest of snorts.

CHAPTER 21

It took several hours for the Nomad’s crew to comply with Lars’s wishes—well, demands, really. Lars had sat cross-legged on a stool while the Nomad’s crew set up a laboratory to his liking in a previously empty storage room on the ship. Now that it’s been declared acceptable, the Nomad and I wait for the eccentric scientist to reenter the room after muttering something about needing to check on his larvae, which the crew members had refused to unload from a crate in the adjoining room.

“I’ll be certain to make sure he washes his hands before examining you,” the Nomad had said as soon as Lars had been out of earshot.

Thanks, I had written on a sheet of paper.

That was minutes ago, but the Nomad now glances down at it for the second time, chuckling to himself.

What? I write.

“It’s just that, when you’re frustrated, you write like you would talk. Short, I mean. And not just that the words are short or the sentences are short. Even your handwriting—see, the letters are closer together. It looks rather sloppy, you know.”

That’s because I don’t care to waste much effort on communicating with you.

Something strange flickers across the Nomad’s face. “Did I do something?”

Between hunting me down, imprisoning me on your ship, refusing to help me when those imbeciles attacked me in the tavern, and coercing me into helping you lift whatever it is you’re looking for in the Sister’s lair?

“I meant since then. Have I done something since then to offend you?” If I didn’t know better, I’d think the Nomad sounded sincere.

No, I write.

He’s right, my letters are closer together. Sloppy.

“Oh, really? Because it seems that I’ve offended you.”

Well, let’s see, you’ve murdered me every single night of my life since I was seven, and now apparently you somehow trick me into marrying you and having children with you before you do it, I think. What I write is, If you were about to be “examined”—I make that word especially large—by someone who seems to think your worth is about as much as an insect’s, you’d be tense too, I’m sure.

“To be entirely fair to Lars, he does deem insects to be more valuable than most fae or human lives, so really, it’s a compliment,” says the Nomad, coolly.

I roll my eyes. Why are you even here?

The Nomad clucks his tongue and cocks his head to the side. “Oh, would you have rather come alone? If I remember correctly, that was one of your many demands.”

Just then, Lars walks through the doors, a glass jar full of wriggling larvae in his hands. “Magnificent!” he says. “My weevil eggs have hatched and I get to biopsy a faerie wing, all in one day!”

The Nomad looks at me as if to say, See, aren’t you a little bit grateful that I’m here?

All of a sudden, my limbs go clammy. Not at the idea of Lars biopsying my wings, but at the notion that already, I can read the Nomad’s expression like I could, well, a husband.

He must notice my sudden pallor, because the Nomad cocks his head to the side in question.

I wrench my gaze from his, not wanting to see the concern in his eyes, the one that brings back memories of the dream I had last night. And not just the dream, but the memories that the future version of myself had had about the Nomad. The level of emotional intimacy we’d shared. The jokes, the laughs, the nights, the touches.

That’s the thing about dreams.