My lips pursed.
Banfgaard was where his family lived, but it wasn’t where he belonged. In Mountheim, I had never seen anyone speak to Finn the way Iqbal had just now. There was none of that emotional coercion. It didn’t seem like he missed this place. He carved the path he wanted, fully aware that his family would never forgive him. It was brave, though I imagined it carried its fair share of guilt.
“It’s your life,” I murmured. “You should get to choose how you spend it.”
The moment the words left my mouth, they sank into me. So simple, so obvious. Yet I hadn’t seen it that way before, not when my own tangled mess was involved. And that was the problem.
But Finn? I couldn’t imagine him not living in the Hall, not being anything but himself. The charming one, the emissary who was clever enough to decipher how Madden meddled with the curse. The friend who had seen my situation and was kind to a stranger when he didn’t need to be.
He sighed. “Yeah. I suppose that’s true.”
A thought struck me. “How does Gwinifer handle your uncles?”
Finn cracked a laugh. “She hates them. On one of the trips here, she jumped on Anife, and Reagan had to hold her back.”
I found myself chuckling, satisfied to see him relax a bit.
“It’s why Gwin had to stop coming,” he went on. “She would have made them pay for that swim.”
We walked back as Finn recounted their previous visits to Banfgaard. He was in the midst of telling me how his father had left the country when we spotted Maith by a tree. Her gaze was fixed on him as though she had been waiting.
“Do you want to dance?” I offered.
His attention was already on her. “Perhaps another time.”
“Deal.” I nudged his shoulder with my own. “Do you think your uncles will take it badly if I say that the food would be more appetising if they put on a shirt?”
That earned me another laugh.
Chapter 35
Jane
The next day, I wandered across the lawn just beyond the entrance foyer. Our hosts had summoned us for a meal after a morning spent exploring the palace corridors. We had pressed them for what it would take to get information from their spies, going so far as offering dedicated battle mages for the protection of Banfgaard. Still, they seemed reluctant to get involved, even while acknowledging the Scions as threats.
I realised we might have greater odds if we approached them separately, so I excused myself to the washroom and headed here instead.
A hand closed around my arm.
My reaction was instant, burned into muscle memory by every round Gwinifer had drilled into me. I twisted free before the breath fully left my lungs and used the same move I’d seen her use to drop Reagan, who was three times her size.
Arun landed beneath me, his hands lifted in surrender, his mouth pulled into a half smile. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”
He hadn’t fought back at all. If he had, I doubted I would have brought him to the ground.
Yet, it took effort not to let my satisfaction grow too much.
I’d seen his sidelong glances when I left the dining room, felt the captain of the elven sentries trail me outside. I was an unknown guest, alone in the palace, not going where I had said I would. And then, there was the other hunch.
I stepped off him. “Don’t walk behind women and grab them.”
“I should know better,” he said as he rose, his white tresses falling over one shoulder. His gaze swept over me. “Though if I’d known you would put me on my back, I would have done this sooner.”
I lifted a brow, letting my mouth curve as I stepped back among the milk-glass lilies. “I wasn’t hungry to eat with the others, so I thought I could come and see the garden.”
His hands clasped behind his back, pulling the fabric of his blue shirt taut. “I didn’t say anything.”
“So you’re not checking what I’m doing?” I asked, strolling along the flower beds.
