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His gut twisted. “Clare?”
No response. He had to stop this—whatever this was. He’d felt her magic all the way out at the road, and it had been spreading, like a rolling fog. If it reached far enough that anyone else felt it…
He dropped to his knees in front of her. “Clare?”
She didn’t so much as twitch, not a single indication that she’d heard him, that she was aware of his presence. He tried twice more, to the same effect.
“I’m sorry,” he said. And then he covered her hands with his.
Her eyes flew open. The normally green irises glowed an incandescent white. He was struck with the inexplicable certainty that something other than Clare looked out at him. It was cold, and ancient, and it did not like him. The furious wave of its—Clare’s?—power pulsed…and lessened.
Her hands shifted beneath his. The crumpled paper dropped to the floor and she gripped him tight in return, the brilliant blaze of her eyes dimming. She blinked and the brilliance retreated further, leaving her eyes, only a little brighter than they should be. Power swept past him, into her, as if the liquid contents of a spilled glass were being sucked back into it.
And then it was only Clare looking at him, no trace of what he’d felt before lingering in the air. As if a candle had been extinguished, plunging the room into darkness. She looked down where their hands linked, but she made no move to pull away. He didn’t either.
“What happened?” His words were barely more than a whisper.
Anger compressed her mouth into a thin line, and a flicker of that other magic surged. Determination lit her eyes and it died.
A clatter sounded as someone surged through the open doorway—Fitz. Ferrian’s hells, hadn’t Numair told him he would deliver his damn message? The man was panting, out of breath, his eyes fixed on Clare. “I felt...” He swallowed.
Cold washed over Numair. He surged to his feet, no real plan of what he was going to do, save knowing that if Fitz had felt her, felt that magic, the man couldn’t leave here with the knowledge.
But Clare had moved with him, in perfect tandem, and her hands tugged at his, holding him back. He stared at that connection. Such a small, simple one, and yet his ease with it wasn’t simple at all.
“You felt like her.” Fitz sounded uncomfortably like he was addressing a god, had the same adoration on his face Numair imagined the devout reserved for their deities.
Clare scowled. “I’m not her.”
Fitz swallowed again and lost a little of the dazed expression. “I know.” Then he echoed the same question Numair had asked. “What happened?”
She sighed and, with the slightest squeeze of Numair’s hands, removed hers. She bent, retrieving the envelope and the letter. “The king desires entertainment, and he has found me acceptable for it. He expects me at dinner, and to keep Verol’s schedule in the palace.” She said it evenly and without inflection, a simple relaying of facts.
But there was more to it than that, Numair was certain. Something else rested in the ink on that crumpled paper, something that had sent her spiraling into that power she hid so carefully.
“I can help,” Fitz said.
She laughed. “What are you going to do against him?”
He didn’t answer.
“I think I preferred it when you hated me. You want to help? Then whoever it was I reminded you of, who makes you feel all that guilt when you look at me now? Remember that I’m not them any more than I’m her. And stop looking at me like that.”
Fitz’s face closed off, his expression going blank. That it could do so on command was…interesting. “I’m returning to the suite,” he said carefully. “I’ll stay out of your way.”
She shrugged, as if it didn’t matter, and Fitz left. Numair watched her stalk out, presumably to her room. When she returned she was wearing his coat, a bag slung over her shoulder.
Numair walked with her to the stables. Tension had her shoulders in a death grip, and if she was any more rigid she was going to shatter. Kialla approached without any prompting from him, huffing a gentle breath against Clare’s cheek. He’d been right to think they would suit.
She closed her eyes, resting one hand on the mare’s neck, and spoke so quietly her lips barely moved. “Don’t ask.”
“I won’t.” Even if he wanted to. Even if how much he wanted to scared him. The trap that was Clare Brighton had caged him neatly, and he hadn’t even felt it spring.
It had been easy, before, not to care about anyone. Because no one cared about him. No one even pretended to—not without demands, not without a goal in mind. But now here she was, and he cared, and he couldn’t help her because he couldn’t even help himself. She was caught in the same poisoned web they all were, with Alaric the spider at its center, and no one could help anyone because they were all trapped at different points.
He hesitated, but in the end, he had to say it. “I won’t be any help to you. The opposite, in fact. I won’t blame you if you cut me loose.”
Her eyes flashed with obvious irritation. “If you don’t stop offering to let me out of this friendship, I’m going to start thinking you don’t want to be in it.”
