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She wasn’t foolish enough to think he would forget about her. Now that it was out in the open between them—Renault County and Simian—she knew better than to hope he would leave her alone. But he was a king. One for whom the foulness stitched to him meant he would live a very, very long time. So surely he had more important things to do than wonder, immediately, where she was.
The only real problem was that, once again, her wardrobe was in the palace suite. She would go by Chalen’s tomorrow, she decided, and see if the rest of what she’d ordered was finished. Bring it here to the Arrendons’. At least this time she’d had her coat on when she’d left. She drew it closer around her—it still smelled faintly of Numair, a mixture of floral tones and earthiness she equated with his nature magic. It was…oddly soothing.
She pulled the garment tighter after murmuring a soft goodnight to Kialla, who was sniffing at the wood-chip bedding in her stall with that look that said she was trying to find the perfect place to lie down. Clare was halfway to her room’s window—it felt like a more natural entrance to her than the front door—when she realized something was bothering her about the house.
That something was the light glowing softly from the kitchen window. A form paced on the far side of the room. Her first thought was Fitz, but then she realized the silhouette was too slender, a hair too short.
She changed course, entering through the back door and walking into the brightly lit kitchen.
“Where have you been?” the Duchess of Wake snapped. And oh, did she sound like a duchess, having dropped all pretense of a common accent, tone rife with the kind of aristocratic self-importance that one had to be born with to have it come so naturally.
Clare arched one eyebrow at the haughty demand, shoved her hands into her coat pockets, and leaned back against the wall, adopting an insouciant air. “A thousand apologies, Your Ladyship. Had I realized I was now a vassal of the Duchy of Wake, I’m certain I should never have left this kitchen, in case you should possibly need to speak to me for any reason.”
Alys looked about to snap out an agreement that that was precisely what Clare should have done. Then she closed her eyes and took a deep breath before opening them again. She didn’t apologize, but Clare hardly expected her to.
“You promised you would help. You owe me.”
“I did and I will.” She took some issue with the matter of owing, but she decided to let it pass unremarked on, given how…volatile Alys looked. “Do you have something for me to help with, then?”
“I’m trusting you,” Alys warned. “With something far more precious than my life. If you don’t deliver, if she dies, I’ll kill you.”
“You could try,” Clare purred. “But don’t worry. I’ll make certain you never need to.”
“Then I need you tomorrow night.” Perching on one of the kitchen chairs, she motioned for Clare to sit. She then proceeded to talk, going over and over the plan for the next two hours. She probably would have gone over it until the sun rose, had Clare not put her foot down and said, “I’m going to sleep. You can follow me if you truly feel the need to reiterate the plan to my unconscious form, but I’d hate to have to tell Lina that you spent the night before her rescue in bed with another woman.”
Alys looked affronted.
Clare rolled her eyes. “Get some sleep, Lady Megadari. You clearly need it.”
“Wait.”
Clare groaned, then almost jumped at the sound—at her ease making it, the same ease with which she’d rolled her eyes seconds ago. She could not remember the last time she had been comfortable enough around anyone to have uncalculated responses. Between Alys, Numair, and the Arrendons, she hardly knew what was happening to her.
When Alys deduced that Clare was, in fact, waiting, she said, “What did you do to Fitz?”
Clare’s voice cooled a few degrees. “What did I do to him?”
Alys didn’t miss the anger in her voice, but she clearly missed the seriousness behind it. “Yes. He’s—I haven’t seen him like this since I met him.”
“Do yourself a favor, Alys. Stay out of business that doesn’t concern you.”
“It does concern me. I need him tomorrow night. But when I told him you were coming, he said I had to ask you if it was okay, or he wouldn’t.”
Clare made a frustrated noise. Life had never been complicated in this way before, this way that seemed to involve so many emotions and relationships, things she had shoved down and avoided. It occurred to her that she should just go back to avoiding them. She schooled her voice into dismissive neutrality. “It makes no difference to me if he comes.”
“What happened between the two of you?”
“That would be none of your concern.” No one, absolutely no one, needed to know how helpless he’d managed to make her feel. How helpless she’d been, with the Song hiding away. What kind of magic let a man coat his body as if in stone?
In retrospect, she could have Songweaved. Distracted him. Her response to the attack had simply been too animalistic for the rational part of her brain to remember that. So tonight she would sit in her room and relive that moment over and over again, until she accepted it, so that the next time, she would not panic.
She’d allowed herself to become complacent in all too short a time, had let herself relax. It was almost a relief to realize she shouldn’t. When everything was a threat, it was also less complicated.
But Alys seemed intent on making it complicated. “Fitz is my friend,” she warned. “And he’s been through enough. Don’t trifle with him.” Softer, she said, “I’d rather you didn’t with Numair, either.”
It took a nudge from the Song, filling in the gaps between the words, for Clare to understand what she meant. Once she did, she didn’t bother to stop her laugh. “What exactly did Fitz say to you?”
“Nothing. That is what’s so strange about it.”
