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He heard the door shut and they walked in just as the kettle whistled. He took it off the stove, giving them both exaggerated once-overs. “Well, I don’t see any blood or other signs of physical violence.”
He received identical scathing looks in return.
“She can stay,” Aunt Lorna said. “But you’re going to have to share Tomlin’s room and you get to explain to him why he has to share a room with his cousins.”
Numair groaned. “Nissa’s fighting with Arlan again?” Lorna’s only daughter, Nissa often wound up back here, along with her two daughters, whenever she and Arlan weren’t happy with each other.
“When isn’t she fighting with Arlan?”
“You know this is a small house,” Nissa’s high voice shouted from the direction of the guest room. It sounded a little shrill, like it always did when she’d been crying. And half the time he visited, she was crying. “I can hear you.”
“Then consider coming out and being polite,” he yelled back. “I brought company.” Utter silence greeted this announcement. Then a door opened and his cousin stalked into the kitchen.
One look at her and he knew that this time, her and Arlan were really fighting. It was midafternoon and the only concession to dressing she’d made was to put on her most well-worn, tattered robe. Even with the heating spells he’d “accidentally” bought for every house in the village, his aunt’s home was still plenty chill, because she refused to fully utilize said spells, and Nissa’s skin was prickled with gooseflesh. Her eyes were red-rimmed, her cheeks puffy, and she looked like she hadn’t brushed her hair at all in the last two days.
“You look awful,” he lied. Nissa was one of those people who could fall into a mud pit and somehow still come out looking effortlessly beautiful. Most of the village had been in love with her at one point or another, but true to his family’s seemingly innate sense of obstinance, she’d gone and found a husband from three villages over.
She drew herself up, eyes flashing. “You don’t exactly look like a fresh blossom yourself. I can smell the travel dirt from here.” She looked around him at Clare, who was more or less attempting to fade into the shadows. “Company, hmm?”
“Nissa, this is Clare. Clare, this is my cousin Nissa.”
“Hi, Clare.” She crossed her arms. “Why are you here?”
Numair covered his face with his hand. Clearly, he hadn’t thought any of this through. “She’s here because I invited her.”
“No,” Nissa said slowly, “she’s here because she accepted the invitation, and I want to know why. I don’t know many court women who enjoy visiting farming villages in the middle of the cold season.”
“You don’t know any court women,” he pointed out.
“Yes, and I’d been hoping to keep it that way.”
“She isn’t a courtier, she’s”—he’d been about to say “a singer” but he hadn’t brought her here to make her perform, and that would definitely happen if they knew she could sing—“my friend.”
Nissa raised her eyebrows skeptically and drew out the word, “Right.” She pointed at the kettle. “Were you going to make tea with that or let the water go cold?”
He let her have the kettle—she made better tea than he did anyway—and faux-whispered to Clare. “I promise I thought it would be nice to bring you here, but now I can’t remember why.”
“What’s nice about Deleen Village?” Nissa objected. “Especially in winter? Honestly, Numair, this is not the place to bring a woman you’re trying to impress, and I would expect a prince to know that. Unless you’re trying to run her off.” She peered at Clare. “Is he trying to run you off?”
Clare swallowed. She didn’t look precisely like a horse about to bolt, but she did look like one strongly considering the option.
“I have to check over the horses,” he said abruptly. “Ollie’s knee was still giving him trouble the last time I was out, and Clare needs to come with me.” He herded her toward the door.
“Oh no you don’t.” Nissa attempted to gesture proprietarily with her tea mug. “You don’t get to bring home the first woman you’ve ever brought home and then abscond with her.”
“Watch me.” He reached around Clare, opened the door, and they escaped.
Chapter Sixty-Seven
Special Occasions
Clare was not entirely certain what had happened. Other than that she had stood there, in the midst of so much chaotic energy, and said absolutely nothing. Lorna, she had felt compelled to respond to. She was the type of woman Clare understood. Nissa was…not.
She had never seen anyone willing to wear their pain so openly. Clare did not cry. If the impossible happened and she did, she would never let anyone see it. Because that required trust, and trust was the thing she’d found so confusing in that house. It had been there in the easiness between the three of them, willing to speak so openly with each other, as if unworried about how their words might be used against them. And while she hadn’t quite been a part of it, she hadn’t been excluded either. As if they were willing to include her if she took the right steps.
It made her feel like she stood before a lone, starving wolf, and if she made the right choice, she could join it to form a pack, but if she made the wrong one it would eat her.
“Are you okay?”
