“No,” she said, clearly a little stung by his tone… just as intended. “We understand that the Fog extends much farther than we can see… nobody knows exactly how far. Forever, some say. Is that so?”
“We don’t know either,” Cato shrugged. “We do know there’s vastly more territory covered by Fog than… not covered. But with what it does to your mind, I suppose it’s understandable that some insulas would be more… remote, than others. Perhaps you all aren’t the only community that lives like this, convinced it’s just you out here…” He shook his head, fascinated, then caught himself. She’d tricked him into indulging his fascination for the subject again. He had to stop letting her do that.
But talk about the nature of reality wasn’t enough to distract her from the subject of his staff and his armor for long. He held out for a little while, drawing the conversation around in circles, but Acantha wasn’t having it. She’d caught him in a few lies about Isthmus, just minor contradictions, but enough to make it clear he wasn’t being truthful about where he was from… and once that had come out, it had only been a matter of time before she’d forced out a proper confession. He told her about his coven, about their nomadic lifestyle moving from place to place in the Fog… he even told her a little of the magic they used to keep their minds intact and their ever-changing homes safe from the monsters that lived out there.
Haspar would have killed him if he’d heard he was sharing even that much information, in the end. Such sloppiness was very much unlike him. But there was something about this woman. It was almost as though some part of him genuinely wanted to tell her the truth about himself. He couldn’t remember ever feeling that way even with his coven-mates, the people he spent the most time with… so why the hell did he suddenly want to spill his guts for the first time in his life to an enemy who was keeping him prisoner? What exactly about a hostile interrogation was making him feel like opening up? He’d be suspicious that some kind of magic was at play if it wasn’t for the gemstones woven into his braids. Protection magic, all of them, designed to warn him when his mind was being interfered with. All of them had been stubbornly silent since he’d gotten here.
So it wasn’t magic. And it definitely wasn’t charm—he’d never met someone so blunt, so forceful, so completely disinterested in being liked. Still, he found himself looking forward to their conversations each morning and felt an odd sense of dismay when their conversations came to an end every evening. And maybe it was the distance from Haspar and the rest of his coven, but he couldn’t even bring himself to feel guilty for telling her about his magic.
After all, if he played his cards right, he’d be able to fix all of this when he escaped. If he was reading the situation right, Acantha wouldn’t have told anyone about what he’d been telling her yet. She was the cautious type, and she’d want to make sure she had the whole truth before she shared it. That meant that she was most likely the only person here who knew any of his secrets. It was a gamble, and he didn’t want to risk too much in case things didn’t go his way, but once he got his hands on his staff again, he’d be able to remove her memory of what he’d told her.
And he got his chance sooner than he’d expected.
He’d known she’d get on a line of questioning about his magic sooner or later. Though he held back the details, he told her the bare bones of it fairly accurately. The gems in his armor, the objects inlaid in his staff, even the staff itself—he told her about their magical function, and she listened intently, that stone-faced facade not quite hiding her curiosity.
“So I was right to remove your armor,” she observed, not looking at him when she said it.
“Well, to a given definition of ‘right’—”
“Tell me what the armor does,” she instructed him, eyes boring their customary hole through his skull. “Piece by piece. And the staff.”
This was it. This was his chance. Hiding the adrenalin that was running through him, he affected boredom, leaning forward and rubbing his forehead wearily. “I’m getting tired of talking, Captain.” He’d learned early on that using Acantha’s name was a bad idea if he wanted to keep building their weird, fragile rapport. “I can go over it in the morning if you’d like, but right now I’m just…” He shrugged. “Can we call it early? It’s just hard to remember and explain it all without actually having it on me.”
“Nice try.” She folded her arms. “Let me just fetch all your weapons for you, shall I? Would you like a copy of the keys to the cell door while I’m at it?”
Cato rolled his eyes. “Really, Captain? You think I’d try something that obvious? No, I just—there are a bunch of different enchantments and artifacts I use regularly and I can’t remember which ones I have with me without looking at my staff. I only have these,” he added, gesturing at his braids. “And these are boring old protection spells, I can’t show you anything cool with these.”
“Protection, huh?”
He let his expression flicker, as though he’d let something slip he hadn’t been intending to—saw the mostly-hidden touch of triumph on her face. “Yeah.”
“Didn’t protect you from getting knocked out.”
“Magical protection, not physical. I left those at home. Didn’t think I was going to run into anyone, did I?” He sighed heavily. “Look, it’s up to you. We can talk tomorrow, or you can put my staff somewhere I can see it and I can talk you through it now. I’m good either way.”
Acantha studied him for a long moment, and he pretended not to be holding his breath. Then, wordlessly, she got up and left the cell, locking it behind her. Cato waited, half convinced he’d misjudged the situation, that she was leaving for the night… and then he heard footsteps, and his heart leaped into his throat. She was back, and she was holding a piece of his armor. He looked at it and let a flicker of frustration show on his face, before deliberately smoothing his features. There. A smug little half-smirk. She thought she’d outfoxed him by bringing something other than what he’d asked for. And the bracer was the smallest piece of the armor, the most likely piece to be set on top of the rest and the easiest to grab.
“You can start by telling me what this does,” she said, holding up the bracer. Cato nodded and moved over toward the bars, deliberately putting his hands behind his back to prove he wasn’t going to grab the bracer out of her hands. She watched him closely, green eyes inscrutable as always, but he had to trust that he had her. Had to trust that her curiosity was piqued.
“Let me see,” he said impatiently, and she stepped closer with the bracer still gripped in her hands. There was something odd about looking at her from this angle, and he realized with a jolt that they hadn’t been this close since she’d hauled him before the Queen. Even with the bars between them, he could feel odd electricity in the air, a strange magnetic pull towards her. Was it the armor? He flexed the fingers of his right hand, feeling the muscles in his wrist pull and twitch… no. Something else, here. Curious.
“Cato?”
“There’s something—” None of this was part of the plan. There were alarm bells ringing in the back of his mind, screaming at him that he was about to mess everything up. It was like he’d lost control… no. Cato knew exactly what it felt like to have his movements controlled by an external force, and that wasn’t what was happening as he leaned closer and closer to Acantha, who by some miracle was still there, eyes still fixed on his face, her breath warm against his lips as he drew closer. And then, impossible as it was, he was kissing her. There was nothing in the world except the warmth of her lips, the lightning bolt of recognition thatshe was kissing him back—
When he lifted his hands, it was to hold her, to cup the back of her head and draw her closer to him. But instead, he felt his fingers hit the cold metal bars between them, and felt his attention lurch back to the reality of the situation. The whole world slowed to a terrifying crawl as his mind raced through the potential outcomes of what he was doing right now. None of them were good.
What was his only goal, at the end of the day? Survival. And before anything could interrupt that drive, he seized the bracer from her unprotesting hands and slammed his wrist into it. The glow of power suffused him and he stepped back, the words rising automatically to his lips, Acantha’s shout of anger barely audible over the roaring in his ears. Cato sought her eyes as the power crackled in him… and he hesitated, for just a moment, before he released the wave.
She slumped to the ground, out cold before she’d even hit the floor. He should have felt triumphant as he hastened over to reach through the bars for the keys. There were few better rushes than successfully breaking out of captivity, and beating a formidable opponent like Acantha should have been an exquisite victory. But right now, he just felt… bad. His lips were still tingling from the kiss. Was that why he felt guilty? It wasn’t like he hadn’t flirted his way out of danger before. Besides, that hadn’t been what he was doing here. He’d set aside the prospect of seducing Acantha about three minutes into their first conversation—he’d have had more luck seducing a brick wall. Kissing her had been more about the element of surprise, shocking her just enough to swipe the armor.
But it hadn’t been, had it? He hadn’t known he was going to do that. He still wasn’t sure why he’d done it, even now. He also didn’t know why his heart was still beating so hard in his chest as he let himself out of the cell and hastened down the hallway beyond. There was a door ajar, and sure enough, inside the mostly empty room he found the rest of his armor and his staff, stored neatly on a shelf as he’d imagined. Cato dressed quickly, feeling the reassuring touch of his power restored as he buckled each piece of armor on tightly. With his staff in his hand, he felt like himself again.
One more thing to do before he got the hell out of here. Cato’s footsteps slowed as he headed back down the hallway to where the guard captain was still out cold. Another odd pang of guilt as he looked down at her. Unconscious like this, her face was serene, free of the hard, tense expression she wore like a mask. Cato found himself staring at her, then shook that off impatiently. Why was he putting this off? There was a gem in his staff that would clear all her memories of him, he simply had to focus and activate it. It was a five-second job. So why was he instead going back into the cell to grab his pillow to put under her head? Part of him was tempted to carry her into the cell and lay her out on the bed instead, but something about the idea of touching her while she was unconscious made him feel like a creep.
Why? Why didhefeel like the creep? She was the one who’d been holding him prisoner. Wipe her memory, Cato. Do it. Sure, she’ll be confused as hell when she wakes up, and she’ll probably have a lot of trouble answering her Queen’s questions about a prisoner she no longer remembers… it might affect her job as Captain of the Palace Guard, which is clearly the most important thing in her life and the work she’s most proud of… but that’s not your problem.
Cato crouched beside Acantha’s unconscious form for what felt like an hour, grinding his teeth. Then he straightened, swore at the top of his lungs—and disappeared.