Joy was curled on the sofa, fast asleep. Dark rings smudged the delicate skin beneath her eyes, her small hands still clasped over the long cotton sweater I’d lent her. We were close enough in size for it to fit, though she was shorter.
She’d only agreed to wash up after I swore I wouldn’t leave Father’s side. Even then, she’d rushed back, wide-eyed and cursing about the sentient washroom. She didn’t trust the castle nor the staff.
She had good reasons to doubt my new position in the Capital, not the least of which was that it had been Finnegan who came instead of me, returning with the profits from our deals. She had gone to Father after her suspicions had grown too large to ignore. It seemed that her obsession with what troubled her was not something Finn’s draught could prevent.
The two of them took the same express train I had, leaving at the station in Mountheim.
Only, that part didn’t sit right with me. Father knew what the Capital looked like. Why had he agreed to get off at Mountheim?
My eyes darted from him to the heirloom ring on Joy’s finger, its twin glinting on my own. Neither of us had taken them off in days, not even to sleep.
I knew it was impossible, yet Reagan’s conviction had unsettled me. The way he’d looked at us that day, utterly certain, made me wonder whether there might be truth in his ideas.
He’d left us alone after bringing us to the infirmary, wanting to give us privacy. He had. Four days of it. Even though he couldn’t have bothered to tell me for three days prior that my family was here, knowing how much I’d missed them, knowing my father was hurt and Joy had been locked away in that tower. My need to know why he’d done it made me want to hear him.
I pressed at my temples, remembering the way he’d looked at me then, his eyes intent and searching, coaxing me to understand. His expression had changed somewhere along the line. It had become too intense and unwavering. A few moments ago, it was almost pleading.
Joy stirred, drawing a long breath.
“Anything?” she asked.
We’d slept poorly here, if at all.
“Not yet,” I said. “How are you feeling?”
She shrugged one shoulder. “Like I’ve been sleeping on a couch. You?”
My lips quirked. “Like I’ve been sleeping on a chair.”
“You should sleep on the couch tonight.”
“It’s fine,” I murmured, thinking of that freezing tower she’d been locked in.
She rose and walked to Father’s gurney, surveying him with tired eyes. Her strawberry-blonde hair was knotted in a messy bun, gleaming faintly with the kind of shine that came from needing a wash. Mine wasn’t much better.
“What did your boyfriend want?” she asked without looking up.
My brows lifted. I didn’t miss the resentment in her tone or the way her fingers tapped against the gurney’s metal rail, an anxious rhythm that stopped only when she realised the sound it made.
“You were awake?” I asked.
“I’m never fully asleep in this place,” she muttered.
My leg bounced. She needed rest. We both did.
“He invited us to dinner,” I said after a beat.
She snorted, then winced. “How nice of our captor. Good luck with that.”
I couldn’t blame her for feeling resentful. My reaction had been the same when I first arrived and realised, I was, technically, a prisoner. I’d tried to explain how it hadn’t been Reagan’s choice, how things had changed, how I’d grown to like him, even admire him, before anything else had taken shape between us.
Joy hadn’t taken it well. She’d asked if it had ever crossed my mind that they had fabricated everything just to justify keeping me here. That I’d been manipulated the same way she and Father had. That Finnegan had given them some draught to dull their minds, and I’d fallen for it too.
I might have thought the same if I hadn’t seen their displeasure when I'd arrived here.
Her anger had faded only slightly since then, but her suspicion of Reagan hadn’t budged an inch.
“I said he invitedus.”
