A Tempest of Tea by Hafsah Faizal

Author:Hafsah Faizal
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR)

20

ARTHIE

Long after the others had gone to bed and the rain had petered to a stop, Arthie made herself comfortable in an armchair in an apartment on the highest floor above the Nimble Street Bakery. Here, the lamps were doused, and only the soft, cool breath of the moon fell through the wide windows.

She wasn’t fully certain why she’d come, only that her limbs were restless and wanted to move and now she was here.

On the table by her wrist, a small glass held a number of flowers, none of them chosen for their beauty, but for their significance, telling a story. Sprigs of rosemary for remembrance, a pair of gladiolas for pride and victory, asters for patience.

Water splashed in the room just beyond. She tried not to listen. She tried not to imagine the way it would pool in the hollow of his collarbones and cascade down the nape of his neck, the way it would trickle down the length of his arms when he lifted them.

“Arthie.”

Laith was framed in the doorway, bone-white hair wet, a pair of dark trousers slung low around his waist. There was a cuff on his forearm that sat loose, a winding length of silver that swelled to the head of a snake with blue jewels for eyes. He wasn’t wearing a shirt. Arthie didn’t know what to do with her hands or where to look. She wondered if it was as difficult for him to stand there without a shirt as it was for her to witness him.

“Why are you here?”

Not how, only why. In the short time he’d spent with her, he’d learned that she had her ways. He was careful, but so was she. Felix had followed Laith to his apartment the day they’d met in her office, but she never thought she’d ever actually visit the address.

“Put a shirt on,” she said. It took effort to keep her voice light and nonchalant. “We have to talk.”

He stepped into the room, forcing her to look at him. His feet were bare on the knotted-fringe rug. The moonlight ran fingers down his skin, drawing shadows, and Arthie resisted the urge to lean over and light a lamp beside her, not to better her sight, but to see what he would look like bathed in gold instead of silver. Why was he coming toward her? Closer and closer still, each step like a bullet falling into a chamber.

If he was trying to intimidate her, then he—

“My shirt,” he explained hoarsely, reaching for the armoire behind her. He tugged open the door and pulled one out, a swallow shifting in his throat before he drew it over himself, muscles rippling from the movement. “Well? Appropriate for you?”

She wanted to tell him to put his robes on too. It wasn’t about him being appropriate. She wasn’t an Ettenian prude who fainted at an exposed ankle. She didn’t care if a man wanted to walk bare in the middle of White Roaring Square.

With Laith, she simply couldn’t think.

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