Chapter 19

Nicki finished her video feed and swung back to regard Stefan and Omir, their heads together as they talked beneath a shaded portico right off the beach. They'd been at it for hours, after the official tour of the surf schools and the requisite oohing and ahhing of all the people taking part in the sport.

She wasn't going to lie, she wished she could be out there too. Surfing always beat taking videos of other people having fun.

But, as good as she was at the activity side of the equation, it didn't pay the bills. Her work as a blogger did—and that only barely. Stefan's ever-so-slightly sneering commentary on her "profession" wasn't that far off the mark. The low pay for this job was only worth it because of the adventure. But in another five, ten years, who knew what her interest would be in trekking around the world?

She smiled wryly, turning again to stroll along the boardwalk. Granted, trekking around the world in a luxury yacht wouldn't be a hardship. But she wasn't Emmaline, and she certainly wasn't Lauren. Both of her friends ending up entangled with handsome men connected to the royal family made sense. Nicki's life didn't work that way, though. She was the utility player of the team—the girl you wanted with you in the foxhole, but not necessarily the one you'd race across enemy lines to save. More likely, you were convinced she'd figure out how to save herself in the end.

And Nicki had no problem with that, not really. She was used to pulling her own weight, but also used to having no one else rely on her. With her heart possibly a time bomb, it was safer that way all around.

Stefan was relying on her, sure. But so far, this "mission" had proven more than manageable. Especially with him stretched out over her body.

"Oh—sorry," she said as she drifted into a table of laughing tourists. She righted her direction as she scanned the mountains surrounding Ala?ati. They were as picturesque as the city, and she might as well get images of them too, while she had her equipment.

She set up her camera and spoke into the mic, doing a slow sweep of the city in long view. In her finder she picked out the remarkable diversity of homes—from abandoned hulks to adorable cottages to freshly painted townhomes. As she panned, she thought of Ari, stumbling ashore in one of the region's vast parks. Where had he gone from there? If it had been her, what would she have done? He had food and water, and he'd made it to a mainland. Even if he'd been disoriented, he would have wanted to find home. Would he have trusted the first people he met?

She grimaced. Probably. Ari had grown up in a loving family, with all the advantages of belonging to the royal ruling class. He would have an innate trust of others. And if he was already concussed, injured…

Her heart sank as she fixed on the cheerful homes high above the city, then swung the camera out to the beach again filled with laughing, happy windsurfers.

There was simply no way he was alive.

"Nicki." Stefan's voice cut across her gloomy thoughts and she jerked her head back from the camera, surprised to see him so close.

"Oh, sorry—I didn't hear you come up."

"Clearly," he said, with a twist of his lips. "You were fixated on the homes overlooking the bay. Did you find anything interesting there?"

"No, not really." She lifted one shoulder. "Unless you count amazing places where I'll never live."

His brows lifted, and he shifted his gaze upward as well. "Too close together," he said, with a certainty that surprised her. "And too far from the water."

"Ha! Don't tell me you're house hunting. I gotta assume you picked up some amazing oceanfront villa sometime around 1900 and have been letting it appreciate since then."

It was his turn to shrug, but his expression grew thoughtful for a moment as he stared at the homes. Then it cleared as he glanced back at her. "Do you have enough footage for your posts?"

"I have enough for a week's worth." She peered down the beach. "Where's Omir?"

"Attending to other business. We'll be dining with him tonight at his hotel—both of us. I told him we would be honored."

She grinned. "I'm sure you did."

"To maintain the illusion that we're here on holiday, I've also booked us into a private hotel. If you'll pack your bag when we get back to the yacht, we'll have it transferred later today."

"Oh—of course," Nicki said. They turned and walked back up the boardwalk, and when Stefan suggested they stop at a beachside café for lunch, she accepted, blinking in surprise as he rattled off an order in perfect Turkish as they were led to a tiny table. He lifted her camera equipment from her shoulder and slid it over his chair before settling in.

Something about this…felt a little off, Nicki realized suddenly. Her heart kicked up with an ominous flutter. Had she done something inappropriate? Slipped up in some way?

"What's wrong?" Stefan's gaze pinned her to her chair, and she offered him a weak smile.

"Nothing—nothing at all. I'm a little shaky for some reason. Too long out in the sun, I suspect."

"I should have broken away sooner," he said as a waiter deposited water, bread, and dates on the table. "Eat, please. Our orders will be here shortly."

She didn't argue with him. She was hungry, to be sure, and her skin was running hot and cold. No, no, no. This wasn't the time for her to be weak. She needed to take better care of herself, or all of this would be pointless.

"I've heard from the guards," Stefan said, interrupting her self-recriminations. "They report that despite what the scavenger dealer reported, there are far fewer squatters in the park than we'd hoped. The ones they'd found were cagey enough to stay out of sight, for the most part, until it became clear that the men were offering money. That isn't totally reassuring, as people lie for money, but there was some useful information."

Nicki perked up. "There was?"

"Not specific, but interesting." Stefan nodded. "These men hadn't heard of Ari, nor had they seen anyone matching his description. But when the talk turned to homeless wanderers and drunkards, they all said the same thing. Those people were locked up, kept out of the public eye. Ala?ati thrives on tourism and on putting up a good face for the well-heeled aristos of the big cities. They suffer no drunks on their watch."

She made a face. "I guess I can see their point, but what do they do with them? Shoot them at dawn?"

"They put them to work in some sort of local mental asylum. Guarded, they say, by monsters."

She almost dropped her fork. "Monster, monsters? Or, like, vicious animals who seem monstrous?"

"That we don't know. I'd received some…previous intelligence that there might be some animal trafficking going on in Ala?ati, but I don't trust the source, here. The locals spoke of this asylum with certainty, and also with fear. Apparently, the threat is real enough to them. We haven't been able to get any corroboration from external sources, however. Not yet."

Nicki nodded, considering the quaint city around them. "I can't imagine this place having a mental asylum. Let alone one guarded by monsters."

"It doesn't, not officially." Stefan sat back in his chair, rolling his glass in his hands. "But there are several facilities that could be used in that role—abandoned warehouses, industrial buildings. The particular warehouse the squatters were warned to stay away from was on the southern range," he gestured, and Nicki turned in that direction. She couldn't make out anything on the ridge with the midday haze. "It's next to a recently excavated ruin of an old temple that's started to cause some buzz for the city, but isn't open to the public yet. It will be soon, by all accounts. The squatters are hoping the site's opening might force the Ala?ati police to come up with a different policy on drunkards, not simply a different holding cell."

"And you think Ari could be in this—in an asylum, um, guarded by monsters?"

"I don't think anything at this point. But if he was clearly disoriented and a vagabond, he'd fit the description of the men they were rounding up. And if they use them for unpaid manual labor, essentially, Ari was tall and strong. He'd be a good candidate for a work detail if he didn't know any better. If he thought he was some kind of criminal, he would do the time. That was how he was brought up."

Nicki tilted her head. "How well did you know him?"

"Ari?" Stefan's lips twisted. "In some ways, not well, for all that we've been forced together for most of his life. My father and the king of O?ros were brothers, all those years ago, so I'm still considered something of a royal cousin. My aunt and uncle took me in when my parents died—though not as an adopted son, by my request. More as a lodger, for lack of a better word. Nevertheless, they ensured my schooling was top-notch, and when I showed an interest in politics, they moved me into the domain of their royal advisor—a man similar to Cyril in temperament. He mentored me from age fourteen on, even after my connection to Hermes became apparent and I pledged myself to him at age twenty."

Nicki stared at him. "I—" she managed. There was so much in that brief statement she wanted to unpack, but she started with the most personal. "I didn't know your parents died when you were young. I thought you…" she waved a hand, clearly at a loss. "I didn't know."

He frowned. "There was no reason for you to know. It was a long time ago. I was eight. They were on a yacht and got caught in a storm."

"And you're still willing to sail?" she protested. "You didn't even blink at taking a yacht here."

Now it was Stefan's turn to stare. "Why would I hold the sea at fault for doing what the sea does? My parents took a chance being out on the sea that night, much as Ari did when he flew off in his plane. It wasn't the fault of all yachts, everywhere, that their boat was unable to withstand the pounding it took. It wasn't the crew's fault that they did not survive despite their best efforts."

He delivered this with an icy calm, but not a robotic one. Nicki got the impression he really did believe what he was saying.

"Do you miss them?" she asked, her voice small.

Then a soft, sad smile creased his lips. "Every day. But the pain has changed, over time. It doesn't go away. But it becomes…different."