‘Really,’ he says.
I swallow, my mind suddenly filled with the image of Fjord, strung up with vines, his face a picture of humiliation and terror.
‘That night, at your uncle’s ball …’ I begin.
He leans back on his elbows. ‘I remember.’
‘Why … why did you …’Defend me?‘… hurt Fjord like that?’
Fox considers this. ‘That snivelling excuse for an Heir chose to ally himself with slander rather than concede his failure. He sought to tarnish you with his own shame.’
‘That still doesn’t explain why you intervened,’ I say quietly.
He smiles, one side of his mouth tweaking upward before the other. ‘If there’s one thing I abhor, Storm Weaver, it’s injustice.’
I furrow my brow, perplexed. How can he possibly mean that, given who he is? I wouldn’t have thought a slaver could feel so strongly about injustice.
Fox watches me, unblinking.
I’m forced to break away from his gaze, charged as it is with an intensity that I don’t understand, one that seems to burn right through my skin, brushing bone.
I turn back to the basket of kittens, some of which have started up a chorus of mewling as they scramble over one another. Gently, I disentangle a little grey one from the pile and scoop it up into my arms.
‘Nice choice,’ says Fox, who is now sitting with a pearly white kitten perched on his shoulder. ‘What’s her name?’
I shrug. ‘Isn’t that up to Renly?’
‘Oh no,’ he says. ‘That one’s yours. She’s the same colour as your eyes.’
I don’t know what to say to that. I don’t know if I can accept this gift from the Earth Cleaver. It’s too peculiar, too intimate. And besides, I didn’t come here for myself. If this kitten should belong to anyone, it should belong to Ren.
Just then, as if it had heard me, the tiny white kitten climbs down Fox’s arm and clambers up my leg.
‘Hello,’ I murmur as she curls up in my lap next to the other. Renly willadoreher. I look up at Fox uncertainly. ‘Thank you.’
He gives a small nod and reaches out to stroke the cat, which purrs at his touch.
‘Is she yours?’ I ask.
‘Yes, but she wasn’t always mine.’
‘Oh?’
Fox runs his finger along the length of his golden chain, the pendant concealed beneath his shirt. ‘She belonged to my sister,’ he says eventually, in a voice like a door shutting. I can almost hear the bolt being slid across in the silence that follows.
His sister? A memory tugs at me. My mind was still clouded from painkiller at the time, but I remember her – the little girl with hair like autumn leaves who appeared in the Terrathian arena. That must have been his sister. But her name escapes me. I’m about to ask him what it was, but I’m stopped in my tracks by the expression on his face. It’s one I recognize all too well, one I myself have worn for years.
Grief.
Fox stands abruptly, holding out a hand to help me to my feet. ‘It’s getting late.’
‘It was already late,’ I point out, handing him Renly’s kitten.
We make our way back to the palace. Streams of courtiers are flowing merrily along the corridors. Many are too inebriated to notice us, but several Eyes watch us steadily until Fox grabs the back of my tunic and yanks me roughly through a concealed door in the wall.
‘What are you doing?’ I hiss. ‘Where are we?’
‘Serf tunnels,’ he says, wrenching a flaming torch from a bracket. ‘Best we remain out of sight. I don’t want my brother thinking I’m after his girl.’
