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“I’m beginning to understand that. What are you, then?”
I have no idea. “His friend. What are you?”
“His aunt.”
Clare blinked. She had been under the impression that Numair had no living family aside from Alaric. But if his mother was from here, she’d clearly married above her station, and maybe he simply hadn’t wanted anyone to know about this place.
“His aunt,” she repeated, the knowledge fanning the dregs of her anger.
The woman nodded.
Just to be certain there wasn’t a miscommunication from Common not being the woman’s first language, she said, “And he has other relatives here?”
Another nod.
Anger burst into glorious flame inside her. “You’re his family. You clearly understand what his life is like, and you let him endure what he does alone?”
The woman’s lips thinned. “I told my sister if she married that man, she’d regret it. But she loved Numair’s father, and nothing we said was going to stop her. Prince Navarren wasn’t a bad man. If he had been, he might have lived.” She said it like she was expounding on some unimportant philosophical point. “The king killed him when Numair was twelve. Told Evaleen—his mother—to leave Numair with him and run home to her little village. She didn’t. I’m surprised she lived the three years she did, after that.”
“So that’s your excuse for leaving him there?”
His aunt sighed. “There is no excuse for that. But he became the king’s when Evaleen died. Ida was allowed stay with him, because Ida would no more hurt anyone or scheme than a blade of grass would. But the rest of us are not welcome there. By the king or Numair.
“We are his escape, when the king allows it. We—some of us—have some understanding of what his life is like. But we don’t see it. He doesn’t want us to.”
Her anger lessened. Because she did understand that there was a difference in knowing a thing theoretically and seeing it firsthand. Understood that Numair came here to have a temporary semblance of a normal life. One that he couldn’t have if their pity constantly reminded him of what he came here to forget.
“Fine,” she allowed grudgingly. “But don’t talk to him again like you were. I don’t like it.”
“Do you have a name?” his aunt asked stiffly.
“Do you?”
She shook her head, but in exasperation rather than refusal. “Lorna.”
“Clare.”
“Well, Clare, you’re as difficult as a drought in the growing season. He clearly has the same taste as his mother.”
“Taste?” Clare echoed. It wasn’t that she didn’t understand the phrase, it was that she didn’t understand how it related to her and his mother.
Lorna surveyed her, as if trying to determine if Clare truly didn’t grasp the meaning. Then she rolled her eyes, muttered something in her first tongue, and followed it with, “Never mind,” in Common.
On that promising note, Clare followed her inside.
Chapter Sixty-Six
Watch Me
Numair watched the kettle heat on the mage-stove he’d finally bought for Aunt Lorna despite her insistence that she didn’t need it, while his stomach twisted itself into knots and he wondered if he’d made a terrible mistake. He’d never wanted Clare to see him like she had two nights ago, when he’d come home and hadn’t realized she was there. Hadn’t realized how badly he hadn’t wanted it until it had happened, and he’d been overcome with the desperate need to show her something else. To show her the one place people didn’t think he was useless.
He had been thinking about himself—about how he felt here, and who he was allowed to be here. He hadn’t considered how different it might be for her. But even if he had, he wouldn’t have predicted her reaction. He knew, from her scars and her aversion to touch, that she had damage. But he didn’t know anything about it, save the obvious that could be inferred, and he never would have guessed she’d respond as she had.
He’d asked her if she didn’t like children, but whether she did or didn’t, her reaction had been deeper than like or dislike. She’d looked at them like she couldn’t understand them in any capacity. Like their behavior—their openness and happiness—was something she’d never encountered. Like their very existence ran counter to some fundamental law. Like being presented with this normal, peaceful place was horrifying.
He remembered what he’d thought of her initially, watching her flit her way through the Midtown market as if she had no understanding of the value of currency, and considered that his first instinct on where she came from might have been right. He hadn’t known, then, what she likely was. Hadn’t known that if anyone could leave that place alive, it would be her.
At least she’d seemed to find some normal footing, bickering with Aunt Lorna. She likely had no idea what she’d implied, interrupting his aunt like that. His mother’s people were traditionally matriarchal, and traditionally possessive. By those metrics, at least, Clare would fit right in.
