Page 38 of A Vicious Love

Veil ran live coverage from sunset.

Holographic black wings opened over the hotel roof at midnight. The casino doors were made of smoked glass and every society account posted clips of the fire fountains, the velvet gaming rooms, the private balcony suites, the men in black, the women in diamonds, the Crow crest burning over the entrance in cold blue light.

Jamison stood at the center of all of it.

I saw him on Veil because I was weak enough to watch.

He wore black. Tattoos showing at his throat and hands. Whiskey in one hand, the whole city looking at him.

Everyone wished him happy birthday.

I stayed home.

Told my mother my ankle was aching from rehearsal. That was not entirely a lie.

For Jamison’s birthday, I gave him the only gift I knew he wanted.

A night without having to deal with me.

No silly questions about his day, and no birthday card, rewritten because everything sounded too affectionate or too cold.

I almost got him a gift. Old habit.

There was a vintage lighter I had seen in an antique shop, black enamel and gold edging, heavy enough to suit his hand. I stood in front of the display case for fifteen minutes imagining him taking it from me, turning it over, maybe saying, it’s fine, which from Jamison would have felt like applause.

Then I remembered the Starlight Ball.

If you ask for my hand one more time, you’ll get it.

I left the shop without buying anything.

The next morning, Emmie messaged me. Asked what happened, and if I was okay. I blamed my ankle.

She said Jamison asked where I was.

The corner of my mouth lift.

He hadn’t asked if I was okay. No. Just where I was.

As if I were an item missing from a table setting. Someone had forgotten to place the flowers.

The next event, I faked a headache.

That one was easier.

I had been getting real headaches lately, so pretending only required me to choose the timing. My mother frowned when I told her I couldn’t attend the riverside auction, but she did not push too hard. I had been pale enough for weeks that even she struggled to call it laziness without sounding cruel.

I spent that evening sitting on the window seat in my bedroom, watching rain slide down the glass while I rehearsed a conversation I could not yet make myself have.

Father, can the merger with the Crows end?

No. Too direct.

Father, is there any possibility of revisiting the terms of the Crow alliance?

Too legal.

Father, I don’t think Jamison wants this.