The White Sheep's Disguise ✓

Chapter 49

Two butchered fish. I shake my head and force down a smile, cutting off what I can from the massacre of bones and scales shoved to my side of the table.

"I have spent more of my life killing than anything else, yet I cannot butcher a fish," Cloak hushes. He bends low, squinting at the fish as if the body structure has changed compared to the last one he practically tore to pieces.

"Try not to smoosh this one with your hand and it'll come out better," I offer.

Cloak straightens, frowning at me. Every muscle in my body puts in extra effort to hide how amusing this is. On normal occasions, his temper tightens an already short leash, but I never realized that such a simple task I mastered years ago would be his undoing. All variations of slaughter—blood and guts—drip down the once-clean white apron tied tightly around his waist and near bursting at the seams. The gulls peck at his bootlaces and I kick them away, towards the bucket of fish heads and guts ripe for the taking. Still, they insist on biting at leather to pull away the shreds of skin that fell between Cloak's soles.

I reach over before he cuts into the next fish, already noticing this one will end like the last. "Don't hold the knife like you're preparing to stab someone," I say, shifting the filleting knife so the angle isn't harshly bent upwards rather than flat. "Glide, don't push."

"Gliding and pushing are the same thing," he retorts, but cuts in anyway. In the matter of two fish, he mastered cutting into the collar and can slice along the spine with ease. Everything else that comes after, crafting the fillet without gathering too many bones or cutting jagged into the fish—that troubles him.

Chaska appears on the other side of the table and braces her hands on her knees, bending low to watch him gut. "Glide the blade against the backbone," she advises, pointing to the white skin through the meat.

Cloak freezes, eyes raising to her. His best smile, crafted from life at the court and the many personalities he has to carry on his shoulders, appears on his face. The false glisten of his eyes does not belong to him, neither does that crooked grin. "I got it," he breathes.

But he takes her advice and angles the blade to cut along the backbone. The fillet begins to peel away, and he cuts softer towards the ribs, where most of his troubles originate. He doesn't smash the fish underneath a large hand, and the plump pink meat tears away, folding against the tail. Like he watched me do before, he cuts a hole through the center and sticks his finger through, angling the blade to make one last cut. The fillet severs, dangling from his grasp.

Chaska raises her arms into the air, turning to face the busy docks around us, attempting to fit in weeks of work before winter strikes. "He did it!" she shouts. A couple of the fishermen whirl, squinting to see what the commotion is about. The dockworkers hardly pay her any heed, they already stopped to watch Cloak struggle before Ocanthio snapped at them to get back to work. "He cut the fish!"

The familiar clink of armor fills my ears as I shush Chaska. At first, I believe Rylan is approaching to demand an answer out of us, but it's only Eligius. He tucks his hands into the collar of his chest plate as he always does and puts one foot in front of the other, seemingly in a mocking strut. Jerking his chin at the fish on the table, appearing to be cut by a professional, he says, "Nice work, Your Highness. Normally, these fish cleaners take days to perfect this daunting task."

Cloak makes a show of looking him up and down. "You think so? Or are you speaking from personal experience?"

The welcoming grin plastered on Eligius's face quickly disappears. Confusion replaces it. Everyone that has ever come across the village, mostly men in search of a job, safe travel, or supplies of some sort, have found a quick friendship in Eligius's tales, presence, and overall desire to make a name for himself across the land. While swaying most women into believing he's more than a simple sinwolf guard, he picks up more rounds of people than he can handle and somehow manages to keep them all satisfied. Through all of his complicated relationships, I have not witnessed many that include as harsh of a greeting as the one Cloak is giving him.