Paula

“How do you know when the Sarows is coming?" hummed Lila as she made her way down the ship's narrow hall, fingertips skimming either wall for balance.

Right about the, Alucard's warning about Jasta was coming back in full force.

"Never challenge that one to a drinking contest. Or a sword fight. Or anything else you might lose. Because you will."

The boat rocked beneath her fee. Or maybe she was the one rocking. Hell. Lila was slight, but not short of practice, and even so, she'd never had so much trouble holding her liquor.

When she got to her room, she found Kell hunched over the Inheritor, examining the markings on its side.

"Hello, handsome," she said, bracing herself in the doorway.

Kell looked up, a smile halfway to his lips before it fell away. "You're drunk," he said, giver her a long, appraising look. "And you're not wearing any shoes."

"Your powers of observation are astonishing." Lila looked down at her bare feet. "I lost them."

"How do you lose shoes?"

Lila crinkled her brow. "I bet them. I lost."

Kell rose. "To who?"

A tiny hiccup. "Jasta."

Kell sighed. "Stay here." He slipped past her into the hall, a hand alighting on her waist and then, too soon, the touch was gone. Lila make her way to the bed and collapsed onto it, scooping up the discarded Inheritor and holding it up to the light. The spindle at the cylinder's base was sharp enough to cut, and she turned the device carefully between her fingers, squinting to make out the words wrapped around it.

Rosin, read one side.

Cason, read the other.

Lila frowned, mouthing the words as Kell reappeared in the doorway. "Give-- and Take," he translated, tossing her the boots.

She sat up too fast, winced. "How did you manage that?"

"I simply explained that she couldn't have them-- they wouldn't have fit-- and then I gave her mine."

Lila looked down at Kell's bare feet, and burst into laughter.”
― V.E. Schwab, A Conjuring of Light