Temptress Unbound by Lisa Cach Page B

that hinted he’d heard me, or the dip of his chin that could have been acknowledgment. Or maybe it was real.
    He turned around and raised the sword above his head, and the stunned crowd, who had unexpectedly witnessed something truly otherworldly, broke into cheering. He waded back toward dry ground, and I took my chance to flee.
    Making an exit was a trickier business than making an entrance. An entrance was a surprise: they audience didn’t know how you’d appear (or even if), and so you could spring forth from anywhere. An exit, though . . . there were eyes on you, watching you go.
    I turned my back to the shore and crept down the ramp. The water felt warm after I had stood for so long in the open air in wet skin and metal. Should I be worried it feels so welcoming? I wondered, but there was no choice but to proceed.
    I fanned my hands again to stay upright as I sank up to my chin, then took a big breath and hurried the last few steps until I could sink all the way under and dive down to the ladders. I opened my eyes, everything blurring and green-brown in the depths, but I saw the rungs and pulled myself to the end, then followed the rope up nearly to the top. Partway there I reached out through the water and found the long hollow reed attached to one of the ducks. I pulled the scaled mask from my face, brought the tube to my mouth, and did as I had practiced, blowing the water out of it and then taking deep gulps of air tainted with the flavor of damp reed. I wrapped my foot in the rope to hold myself steady as I unhooked the costume and shimmied out of it. I let it fall, and it undulated like an enormous, magical fish, the light catching its scales as it sank.
    Free of that weight, and of any risk of the bright tin catching someone’s eye when I emerged on the far bank, I unanchored the raft of ducks, let my head emerge in their midst, and began my slow, careful swim to shore.
    As soon as I was in the reeds and out of sight of the far shore, Terix splashed into the water and started to help me to the bank, talking all the while. “We’d agreed not to have the sword flung! I can’t believe Maerlin changed that on his own. Jupiter’s balls, you or Arthur could have been impaled by the thing!”
    Out of the water, my body felt as heavy as stone and I stumbled, my weight too great for my exhausted, chilled muscles. Terix swept me up into his arms and carried me the last few steps, then dumped me on a pile of waiting furs and wrapped me tight in a wool blanket.
    â€œThat green light wasn’t part of the plan, either, though it was awfully effective,” Terix said as he rubbed my shivering body dry with the blanket. “Maerlin didn’t tell me he had stuff that could burn underwater.”
    â€œH-h-h-e doesn’t,” I said between chattering teeth.
    The blanket rubbing ceased. “Then what was it?”
    â€œSka-a-a-libur-ur. The stone. It did it itself.”
    Terix sat back on his heels and whistled between his teeth. “Fuck a donkey and call her Venus. Really?”
    â€œNo-no-not warm yet,” I complained.
    Terix whisked the damp blanket away and pulled a dry gown over my head, moving my arms for me to get me into it. “Nothing against what you and Maerlin can do, Nimia, but that sword . . . That’s something real.” The gown on, he wrapped me in a fur and hoisted me up in his arms. With a grunt and a wobble he got his feet under him and started carrying me back a long, less-trafficked way to the villa.
    â€œIt was a good show, wasn’t it?” I asked, needing a little praise for my soggy self.
    Terix knew what I was asking for. “It was like nothing this lot has ever seen, or will see again, Nimia. When you started to come out of the water, I swear I caught the hot stench of urine dribbling down a leg or two. Made chills go up my neck, and I’d seen it before. When you started singing, one fair young thing