Caught.
Fuck.
I swallow the dry lump in my throat. "Of course, Ma." I nod to the Duke and then Pa. "My lords. I'll return."
Ma rises like the queen she should have been, while servants rush to ease back her chair. She is a full head shorter than me and shorter than all her daughters. She's still taller than the Duke and most humans, and she commands the hall as though she owns it.
She more or less does.
I walk around the table and offer her my arm. Her eyes never leave me, as though I might lunge for Mirelle's goblet on the way past.
I don't.
I do what a good son does and walk my mother outside.
"You're a good son, Torgan," she says. Her smile is gracious enough for the Duke and dangerous enough for me.
Heat climbs the back of my neck. I ignore it until we reach the gardens.
The low sun filters through the oak leaves and falls across Ma's mint-green skin. She closes her eyes and breathes deeply, careful with her left side as always.
"Do you smell that, Torgan?"
I inhale. "No?"
She gives me a disapproving look. "Try again. Let it fill your lungs."
I try again.
Nothing.
"There is a distinct lack of bullshit in it," she says.
I blink. "Excuse me?"
"You heard me. There is no bullshit out here, and the dining hall is full of it. I needed to leave." She raises a peony to her nose and breathes it in. "Your father is doing his best to court these humans. I understand why, but I cannot stand watching him lower himself for them."
It takes me a moment to catch up. This isn't the lecture.
She's worried about Pa. About our standing. About all of it.
I let out a breath. "I don't know what he's planning either, but..."
"And it doesn't help that you're trying to wreck things for your sister."
There it is.
The lecture.
"Which one?" I ask, trying to lighten it.
She turns an unimpressed look on me. "All of them. There has not been a moment since Duran Ironhoof first called on Ysolde that you haven't behaved like the opposite of a matchmaker. Ysolde. Saskia. Brynna. And now whatever Mirelle believes the rest of us haven't noticed."
So Ma knows about Caden too.
Of course she does.
I open my mouth. Her look closes it.
