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Obviously, she hadn’t been clear enough about which parts of her life Verol was allowed to interfere in. Namely, none of them.
“Perfectly clear,” Numair answered, his voice as much black ice as ever Clare had heard it.
“Then what are you doing here?”
“I am simply bringing her home.”
“Well, you’ve brought her, and now you may leave.”
“Verol,” Clare and Marquin said warningly in the same breath, but Verol paid them no heed.
“And you can take that horse with you after the trouble she caused today.”
“No.” Clare’s voice came out harsh enough to grind stone to dust. Her traitorous heart was already panicking at the thought of the mare’s loss. Mine, it whispered, even though she knew better. But she couldn’t make her voice any more human when she said, “Kialla stays.”
Verol took one look at her face and clearly knew any argument he might make was pointless. “Fine. Kialla stays.” He looked at Numair. “You don’t.”
Clare opened her mouth to reverse the second order, but the gentle tap of Numair’s fingers, where they still rested on her waist, said, Don’t bother. Not for me.
He let her go and faced Verol. “You have always thought little of me, and that is well enough in the end. But do ponder on some occasion, Lord Verol, how very grateful you ought be that I am not my uncle, for I allow you a manner of speaking to me that he would never suffer.” To Clare he said, “I’ll take Kialla back to the palace stables for you.”
But if he hadn’t wanted her jumping to his defense, she wasn’t capable of letting him leave without making some point to Verol. So she waited until he was far enough away to warrant calling after. “Numair?”
Verol’s sharp intake of breath at her failure to use any title whatsoever in her address soothed the jagged edges of her pride. Numair paused and turned, an inquiring quirk to his eyebrow.
“You’re still invited tonight.” Despite trying to convince herself that she didn’t need a friend, that doing this alone was, in fact, preferable, she did and it wasn’t. She pulled his coat tighter, that spelled warmth washing over her. “I hope you decide to come.”
Chapter Thirty-Six
We Understand Each Other
Clare snuggled into her favorite armchair in the living area, paused to consider the concerning realization she now had a favorite armchair, and folded her legs under her. Sensation was returning to her previously numbed extremities in painful pricks and tingles, needles falling like rain on the inside of her skin.
Marquin sat on the sofa opposite her, the two of them watching Verol pace. He had been pacing for the better part of a quarter hour in absolute silence, clearly attempting to gain some measure of control before he spoke.
The level of his agitation didn’t seem warranted, and it wasn’t until she felt the power cocooned around him that she realized what was causing it.
Kinthing magic.
Clare found a smoldering coal of anger all her own and fanned its flames. After the ordeal she’d just went through, she’d had enough of the Song pulling strings.
Stop it.
The Kinthing magic stilled, the switch from active to dormant so fast Verol jerked his head up, wide eyes finding her. “How did you…?”
Clare shrugged.
“Are you all right?” he asked. “Lord Numair sent word of what happened after the stables contacted him and no one could find you. Obviously, I overstepped outside, but forgive me if I’m angry when I think about the damage that could have been done to you had you been present when whatever fool spell he put on that horse broke.”
He looked at her face then and frowned, as if realizing for the first time that she was not precisely a vision of health, and the story he had been told did not line up with the woman in front of him.
If Clare had wanted, she could make the story fit, could fill in the gaps with careful lies. Her face? She had heard about the upset at the stables and in her rush to get there she’d fallen and cut her face open. When she heard how Kialla had run off she had gone looking for her and ran into Numair in the process. Once they found Kialla, they had brought her home. She was sorry she had not thought to send word to Verol and Marquin.
Spoken convincingly enough, any lie could be swallowed in the moment, and Numair had conveniently set himself up to take the blame. To let her walk out of this without telling Marquin or Verol she’d lost control.
She wondered if whatever drove Numair to keep his facade of drunken uselessness in place had cast a shadow over every aspect of his life; if he’d obscured the truth for her, or if he’d done it simply because he didn’t know anymore how not to be the person to blame.
“There wasn’t any spell on Kialla. At least, not the kind he told the Mages Guild.” She let the real story come out, no detail spared. “I think I might need those magic lessons sooner, rather than later,” she admitted.
