Wren nodded, then looked at me, worry in her gaze. “Be careful of Catalaya, Fox. I think she hates you the most.”
“Where’s the weapon?” I asked when we were warming ourselves in front of a fire in his rooms.
“What weapon?”
“The Aetheric weapon. The one the practitioner paid for, and Tommen died for. He wouldn’t have paid unless he’d received it, right? So where is it?”
“In the practitioner’s lair, I imagine. We’ll find it, Fox. But it may take time. Carethia’s a big place.”
“I know.” But it irritated.
And speaking of irritation, I didn’t want to talk about her, not now, but the discussion was inevitable.
“You should tell Catalaya about your empty treasure vault.”
“Her family has nearly as much money as my father. It won’t change her opinion.”
“Her family’s money and her husband’s money are two different things.” I didn’t like giving voice to that possibility, but it had to be said.
“And if she or her servants learn the vault is empty, that tapestries and my personal coin are all I’ve got, what then? Word spreads that the Western Gate is vulnerable. That I’m vulnerable.”
“Then you should marry her for the money.” I regretted the words the moment I said them, but I couldn’t take them back.
“Would you? Marry for money?”
“Of course not.”
“But you’d demand I do it?”
He was close enough that I had to look up to see his face, and that crackling tension swam between us again.
“I don’t care about your damned marriage,” I said, frustration like a living thing, seated beside my heart and burning hot as the ember did. “I care about you.”
The tension crystallized like ice across the river. I was too aware of my body, of his, of our nearness. My head was spinning now, like I’d had entirely too much wine. But I’d had none. There was only us in this empty room.
“Do you?” His voice was quiet, dangerous.
Had I given too much away? Or too little? Didn’t matter. I wasn’t a coward, and I wouldn’t take it back.
So I let out a haggard breath and shifted my gaze to the fire because that was the only thing I was brave enough to look at right now, in this moment. In thisvulnerability. “I do.”
He said nothing, and I glanced back, found something equally soft and victorious in his eyes. “I care for you, too, Fox. But you look very conflicted about it.”
“I don’t know how to do this.”
“This?”
“How to care…like that.”
“You care about Wren.”
“She’s my sister in all the ways that matter. You’re…” I waved a hand around the room. “Complicated.”
“And you aren’t?”
“I’m notthatcomplicated.”
His stare was flat.
