“Oh, you know me, Vasco.” Daisy smiled poisonously. “I’ll never stop caring.”
Caring. The word came out of her mouth like a threat, because it was. Daisy wasn’t capable of caring for someone in the traditional sense. Not her brother, not her parents. Not anybody. If she cared about anything at all, it was whether or not they were useful to her. Vasco had always been useless, so why bother caring about him? Why bother with any of this at all?
Those were questions Daisy couldn’t answer, not even to herself. It should’ve been the easiest thing in the world to let him go, to finally get him out of her life for good, but the thought of him out there fighting for the enemy – the thought of him happy – was like a pea under her mattress. It prickled. It kept her awake at night.
She wasn’t exactly the type to pile more pillows and cushions on top of an annoyance that drove her to distraction. Better to set the whole thing on fire and burn it to ash. But not now. Not yet. The moment wasn’t right, and Vasco still had so much further to fall.
Daisy looked askance at her brother’s poor attempt at a challenge. “A drinking contest? Honestly.” She barely suppressed a roll of her eyes. “That’s artless, even for you.”
Even so, she turned on the stool to face the bar, just at the moment the bartender appeared with another glass for Vasco. She snatched it out from in front of him, lighting quick, and threw it back before thinking better of it. The whiskey burned her throat – not in the way she preferred – and she pulled a face as she slid the glass back to the bartender, holding up two fingers to wordlessly command more drinks for them both. “Ugh. And the cheap stuff, too. Doesn’t the royalty have enough money to pay you? Or, wait. Don’t tell me.” Her lips split into a grin, revealing teeth. “They only pay you what you’re worth.”