Maeve huffed a small sigh of aggravation as he turned and began walking away from her.
“Reeve,” called Maeve.
The High Lord of Aterna turned back towards her.
She didn’t know why it mattered, why she cared, but the question spilled from her lips all the same. “Did you offer your allegiance in exchange for me, or did he seek you out with such a proposal?”
Reeve hesitated. “I sought him out,” he answered, his voice dull, and that grin gone.
What little food lay in her stomach threatened to lurch forward at his words.
“You could have run further from all of this. You could have taken your people anywhere and remained hidden,” said Maeve.
“Just as your spell was breaking, mine was too,” replied Reeve.
“I don’t believe you,” she said with a shake of her head. “I was remembering my lies. Never you.”
Reeve’s eyes narrowed. “Not once, huh?”
Maeve shook her head.
“Now who’s lying?” he said, no trace of a smile.
She closed the door with a soft click and without another word.
Maeve’s breakfast spread with Reeve was double what had been brought to her chamber each morning, but her fingers drummed happily on the cover of her new book. He fought a smile at how easily she caved with just a little bribe. How could he forget how deeply she loved gifts?
“Has Aterna ever experienced a winter like the one coming?” asked Maeve, her voice bleak.
Reeve waited to see if she would eat before beginning his breakfast, but Maeve merely looked out the amethyst-and-crimson stained glass along the hall they dined in. Still, he waited for her.
Magic hummed across her body; it was so weak and untouched he was certain she didn’t feel it at all. He nearly doubted its existence. All the things he wanted to say remained bound behind his teeth. Besides all of that, he knew the real death was within her mind, not her Magic.
Shadow hadn’t hesitated to show him the events of that night in the Throne Room at Castle Morana when he met with her, agreeing to trade his allegiance for Maeve. How Maeve still clung to the idea of saving Mal after watching him mutilate her closest friends and break her body, he didn’t understand. But it wasn’t his to understand.
She’d grieve Mal in the coming days. Weeks. Months.
However long this took.
And he remembered his promise to himself: this time, he wouldn’t let her go.
Her eyes slid to him. Even though they were no longer dark-blue, shimmering beauties, her gaze still held every bit of power over him as it had since the first moment she laid eyes on him.
Her hand fell into her lap.
“Allies,” she said, as though she were tasting the word.
“I’m sure I’m not your first choice,” he replied.
“Far from it,” she said smoothly. “But as my grandmother Agatha would say, ‘beggars can’t be choosers’.”
“I’ve yet to see you do any begging,” he replied. “That would be a treat.”
She didn’t smile. “Always a game to you,” she muttered. “Allies is a joke. We’ll both just be waiting for the other to stab us in the back.”
“But we’ll have so much fun at each other’s throats.”
He could tell she didn’t have it in her to argue or engage. Her eyes didn’t light up with desire for a fight, not like they used to.
