I drank. “Right? If he was more awful I could continue to stew in self-righteous fury about the Lys’Careths. Fucking royals.”
“Fucking royals. Even if you figure out a way to be together, would you want that kind of life?”
“I don’t know. Maybe we could find a different way.”
She sat back again. “Maybe you could. Maybe you could fight the system. If the bet was yours, where would you put the coin?”
“I wouldn’t,” I said. “I’d just punch her in the face.”
“Hurts worse than you’d think,” she said, and flexed her fingers like she was reliving a memory.
“Do you ever wonder what it might have been like to be an aristocrat?”
“Just another kind of cage. Clothes. Manners. Schooling. How to smile and who to smile at. Then who to marry. Then you have kids so they can marry more nobles, and the cycle startsover.” She took a sip. “No, thank you. At least we have the hope of freedom. I don’t think they ever do.”
I didn’t like that that made me pity a woman who had more coin than I’d see in a hundred lifetimes. But Wren had a point.
She leaned forward, eyes eager. “Do you want to hurt her?”
My gaze snapped up to hers. “No. And don’t even suggest it. She must have contacts in the palace. She knew about the attempt on the prince.”
“We could go with a childhood favorite—harmless, but irritating. Itchwort in her shoes. Pink nettle in her rouge. Or belly wort.”
“The one you learned about in the library?”
She nodded. “Just a little, and it soothes the belly. Too much, and you’re in for a very noisy night.”
“We could call her Lady Windy,” I said with a snort. “And I’m much too sober to talk about royal flatulence.” I held up an empty jug. “More sweetwine!”
But the servant didn’t have time to deliver it. The pinch gripped my heart like a fist, and I clutched my chest in one hand, reached out to Wren with the other. The ember flared, and heat and agony warred with each other, with me as the proving ground. One would win, or they’d both kill me.
I cursed, and people around us began to look, to notice that something was amiss. Wren jumped to her feet, threw coins on the table, and helped me outside.
“It’s been a little better since Luna did what she did,” I said as she escorted me through the crowd that gathered outside the inn, and down the road to a quieter spot. “Less sharp.”
“But still bad?”
“Bad,” I said as a second wave hit me and tears threatened to fall. “I don’t want this anymore.”
She took my fingers. “Squeeze hard. Hard as you need to.”
I did.
“Are you squeezing? I don’t even feel anything.”
“You’re hilarious.”
“Tell me what you see, Fox.” Her voice was more serious now. Not just trying to ease me through the pain, but to assess the threat.
I lifted my head and looked around. “No. Nothing.”
But a scream echoed through the alley beside us. We moved toward it, looked into the opening, and I watched a faint trail of Aether shimmer to life.
“There,” I said quietly, and pointed.
Together we crept down the alley, squeezing ourselves back against the wall as someone ran through. “Another possession!” they screamed, nearly tripping over a pile of crates to get farther away.
“Luna,” I whispered. “If you’re out there, this would be a good time to appear.” If she was able to hear me, she made no response.
