A blade in the night? Must be good news.

Chapter 16

The girl slowly opened her eyes and looked around. She was sitting on a sandy beach with her back pressed to something that could've been a palm tree. Her attempts to move caused some pain and realisation that while her legs were free, her wrists were tied behind her back and they were hurting quite badly.

"Oh, good, you're awake. I've started worrying you've bumped your head too hard on our way out" said Septimus stepping from behind.

"Way out? What? What's going on?"

"I've kidnapped you" he answered simply.

She started remembering the dark corridor and wine...

"The wine! You've drugged the wine"

"Yes, I did"

"But... Why?"

"I was bored" he tried to touch the bruise on her forehead, the girl did bump her head pretty hard when he was carrying her out, but she averted the head to avoid his touch.

"I can understand that. But why me? Why not... I don't know... Agatha?"

"Her? And to spend more time with her? No, thanks"

"But still, what's your interest here? Is there an end to this game?" she felt rather nervous, she hoped she could trust him but she was, after all, tied and he actually was a rather dangerous man.

"What are you getting so worked up about? I take you to a nice quite place by the sea and you keep asking me all these questions..."

"Wait, is that your sick twisted idea... of a date?" she was trying to joke but he reacted not in the least how she expected.

"Ahem... Wha... No... I don't think..." he mumbled. Val was staring at him with her eyes wide open.

"It is a date, isn't it?" she said with a huge grin, still not quite believing herself, and continued without waiting for the answer. "You are unbelievable"

The girl made a huge effort and got on her feet, turning her back to the man.

"Untie me, now"

"Or what? I'm the kidnapper here, you can't tell me what to do" he said grumpily and added "And it's not a date"

"Call it whatever you want, just untie me, please. It hurts"

Septimus wanted to argue with her but at that moment he saw her raw swollen wrists and changed his mind. He even for a half of a second thought of apologising but then just silently did what she asked of him. The girl moaned a bit as the blood rushed to her numb fingers.

"So, what's next?" she asked, turning to face him.

"Well, I was rather hoping your aunt will ransom you with a bag of kittens but since I've already untied you and there's basically nothing stopping you from going away... Maybe we could just stay here till the end of the day, it really is a nice place. There is a spring not far from here with drinking water and the sea is full of edible fish. We'll take a day off from the royal family"

"And then, when the darkness comes, we can watch the stars gleaming in the sky..." she said in a mockingly dreamy tone.

"Still not a date" Septimus answered abruptly.

"That's the most useless kidnapping ever" she growled disappointedly.

It did go quite well, after all, even without the star-gazing. Val proclaimed herself "the kidnapped one" and refused to do anything besides lying on the beach or going for a swim. Septimus didn't mind some manual labour for a change and was actually so enthralled in it that he didn't even take notice of the interested looks the girl was throwing at him. Or he simply chose not to show it.

When she joined him to share a freshly caught fish he cooked on fire, he glanced at her critically and stated.

"You stole my shirt"

"Mine's soaking wet. I've swum in it" she answered and muttered half to herself "You're much better off without it anyway"

"What was it?"

"Nothing" she said innocently, looking him straight in the eyes and trying very hard not to laugh.

The first thing he did after finishing his share was to grab her and throw into the sea, thus ruining his own shirt too, and despite all the offensive words Val was calling him at that moment she didn't mind it a bit.

And still when the sun came down and they, muddy, tired and happy, were sneaking back into the castle, Val couldn't help but feeling that something was slipping through her fingers, like a sand on the beach, grain by grain, slowly but inevitably.