After Transmigrating, My Husband Is an Octopus novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: The Door With No Key

At the Drift, Bess feeds her and Lorcan sets three house rules; Morwenna sees his arms and isn't afraid, then lies about what ninety-eight meant and his skin flashes white.

The Drift was a house on stilts, standing alone in the middle of a tidal flat.

The tide was out, and the mud around it shone pink and silver under the afternoon sun.

A long wooden walkway ran from the shore to the front door.

Lorcan walked it in front of me and did not speak.

Neither did I, because I was counting the planks to keep my hands from shaking.

There were ninety-one of them.

The door had no lock.

I noticed that before I noticed anything else, and I noticed that he saw me noticing.

"There's no key," he said. "There never was one. You can leave through that door any day you like."

"You paid seven hundred for me," I said. "Or you were about to."

"I paid a copper tile, and Lord Tristram never got to his seven hundred." He pushed the door open. "I'd have paid more. It doesn't matter. Nobody owns you in this house."

"The courier said seven days," I said. "Pearl Hall, at the new moon."

"I know what he said."

"Then what happens in seven days?"

"The Regent looks at what I bought, and decides if it was worth the tile." His jaw was tight. "We'll talk about it when you've eaten."

I rubbed my wrist where his sleeve had closed around it at the gate.

He saw that too, and looked away.

A girl with short russet hair and a freckled face shot out of the kitchen with a wooden spoon in her fist.

Her ears were round and furry and sat higher on her head than ears should.

"He bought a person," she announced, looking at the spoon, not at me. "Your Highness bought a person, and the whole market's saying you've lost your mind."

"Bess," Lorcan said.

"I'm only saying what the fishwives said." She turned to me, and her whole face changed. "Hello. I'm Bess. I'm the otter. There's soup."

"Morwenna," I said. "Thank you."

"You're skinny," Bess said, and I knew I was going to like her.

The soup was fish, with barley and something sour and green, and Bess handed me the first bowl before I sat down.

I ate two bowls.

Lorcan stood at the stove with his back to me, and he did not sit.

When I finished, he said to the wall, "House rules. I'd like you to hear them before you decide anything."

"Go on."

"One. You have the left room, and I have the right. Nobody goes in uninvited. Two. When you're in the room, my arms stay in my sleeves."

"Your arms," I said.

Bess made a small noise and looked at the ceiling.

"Three," Lorcan said. "The door stays unlocked. If you walk out of it, no one chases you. I'll draw up a pass so no one sells you again."

"That's very fair," I said.

"It's the least I can do."

"Can I ask you something?"

He turned around.

In the daylight his hair was a soft pink-violet, and his eyes were still grey-violet and tired.

"I saw you at the fair," I said. "You went in front of a crowd. They called you a monster, and nobody stood near you. Why did you pay anything?"

He looked at the soup pot.

"There are people at that fair who will eat what they buy," he said. "I can't stop all of them. I can stop one at a time, when I have a copper tile and someone fast enough to get there."

"That's not an answer."

"It's what I'm giving you."

He reached up for a ladle and the long sleeve of his shirt slid back.

Three pale pink arms uncurled from his elbow where a forearm should have been, and I heard him breathe in.

"Rule two," he said hoarsely. "I broke my own rule before I'd finished saying it."

They were soft and ridged, with two rows of pearl-coloured cups along their undersides.

They picked up the ladle, a cloth and the lid of the pot all at once.

Bess didn't blink.

Lorcan went rigid.

His shoulders were up around his ears, and he was waiting for me to scream.

I had spent four years of my life feeding a giant Pacific octopus through a hatch the size of a dinner plate.

"Oh," I said. "You're doing three things at once."

His head snapped around.

"What?"

"The ladle, the cloth and the lid. Do you taste with the suckers? Mine did. She'd taste everything in her tank before she touched it with her mouth."

Nobody said anything.

Bess had put the spoon down.

"You aren't frightened," Lorcan said slowly.

"I was frightened at the fair," I said. "Mostly of the lady with the feathers. I'm not frightened of the arms. They're beautiful."

His whole face went still.

Then the colour went out of his skin from the collar upward, white, and came back as a faint, helpless pink.

I looked away to be polite.

When I looked back he had pulled the arms into his sleeves and was staring hard at the stove.

"What was that you said at the fair?" he asked, in a very careful voice. "Ninety-eight. You said it twice. What did it mean?"

My stomach dropped.

In my old life, I had told exactly one person about the numbers.

My sister had laughed and said I should buy a lottery ticket.

I did not want to be laughed at by a man whose face turned white at a compliment.

I did not want to be a pet with a trick, either.

"A price," I said. "I was guessing what I was worth."

His skin flashed.

It went from pink to a stark white in a blink, a blotchy patch spreading up his neck and over his jaw.

Bess leaned over the counter and whispered, loudly, "He does that when he knows."

"Bess," Lorcan said.

"Well, you do."

"Octopus skin can't keep a secret," he said to me, very quietly. "I'm sorry. I'll never ask you again unless you want me to."

I looked at the white blotch on his throat.

It was the first time anyone in that world had told me they were sorry.

I took the left room.

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