He followed me over the edge with a final, deep groan, his tongue sealing the twin wounds on my neck. We lay tangled, sweat cooling on our skin, our breaths slowly finding a shared pace.
After a moment, Finn shifted and rolled onto his back. He pulled me flush against him, banding his arm around my waist. I rested my head on his chest, listening to the steady, reassuring beat of his heart.
“Stay with me,” he whispered, his lips brushing against my hair.
I turned and cupped his cheek. “Always,” I promised, a truth I felt in my bones.
“I love you, Sidney.”
The admission hung in the quiet air. I didn't look away, keeping my face centered in his field of vision. I framed his cheeks with both hands, holding his focus steady.
“I love you,” I repeated, my lips shaping each syllable with a vow that needed no sound to be understood.
Chapter 28
Sidney
I headed to Mathias’s quarters as soon as the sun set. He lived in one of the spacious suites set aside for nobility to live here long term. Most of Nemea’s council preferred their own estates, but apparently not the Lord Regent.
I knocked on his door and waited with my arms folded. Mathias answered a minute later. He hadn’t yet donned one of his high-necked coats, which left the defined muscles of his arms visible through the material of his shirt. A smirk twisted his mouth as he must’ve caught the way I’d briefly admired his physique.
“Good evening, Lady Ilyana.”
“Lord Regent,” I answered in a cool tone. “I’m here for my set of spelled restraints.”
“Of course. Come in.” He stepped aside, holding the door for me. I could’ve refused and excused my rudeness with the desire to hurry, but something had caught my eye.
Mathias went into the next room while I wandered to the far wall of his living room. It was covered in framed portraits and sketches. City lines, sunrises, people—all etched in charcoal by a practiced hand. I reached out totouch the edge of one depicting a dark-skinned woman whose face was lined with age. A cloud of charcoal-lined curls haloed her head, and her eyes shone with kindness, immortalized on the parchment.
“Do you like my art?”
I startled and turned. Mathias stood in the doorway, holding a plain wooden box in one hand.
“You made these?” I didn’t know why I was so surprised. I’d just never considered how he must’ve had a different life before the Trials of Succession. “Your work is so lifelike. Is this your mother?”
I gestured to the portrait I’d been admiring. He came over, stopping next to me, close enough that I could feel some of the heat off his skin. It’d be too easy to lean in to him and give in to a moment of his solid support.
“Yes. Right before she died.” He traced the edge of the frame with the weight of a single, melancholic moment. The pad of his finger alighted on different frames as he spoke. A house rendered in shadows and the window-covered face of a great mansion. “We used to live in Vesperia, far from here. My parents were glassblowers. My father was the practical one. He spent years on end making windowpanes.”
As he traced the side of a sketch depicting a mosaic window, I scanned the wall, seeing no hint of a man who looked like Mathias. “And my mother believed in making art from anything. Even scraps of broken glass. When I didn’t show promise in the family business, she showed me how to make my own kind of art.”
“What brought you to Pythia?” I asked.
Mathias didn’t respond. His hand fell to rest by his side, and his face went oddly blank. He tilted his head.Maroon eyes darted in his head, inspecting the charcoal sketches or perhaps the room itself.
“I…can’t recall,” he said in a bewildered murmur. Putting his free hand to his forehead, he staggered back a couple of steps.
He shuddered, and my brows drew in concern. “Lord Regent?”
With a shake of his head, he stood tall once more. “The second trial is soon,” he said. A second voice echoed under his tone, so soft I could’ve been imagining it. He cleared his throat and opened the box, showing me a set of manacles covered in mage runes resting inside.
I eased toward him cautiously, as if he were an alligator with this box I needed resting inside his open mouth. “Are you all right?” I asked.
“Of course, Lady Ilyana.” He spoke with his usual authority-filled inflection, a single dark brow raised since I’d dared to question him. “All that matters is that you complete the task and continue to serve the Flask. Take this tool and go.”
Unnerved, I did as he said and headed back to my room. I didn’t know what was going on with him, but I didn’t have the time or energy to devote anything more to questioning one of my enemies. Even if, for the space of a heartbeat, I’d seen the unmistakable glitter of fear in his eyes.
There was a knock at my door while we were preparing to leave. The evening was young, but the journey across thecity to the House of Whispers would take the better part of the night.
