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He stopped himself.

Neither of us said anything. The ballad from the tavern below seeped through the wall, some sailor’s song about a girl on a shore. The duke did not look away from me.

And I could not force myself to look away from him.

Chapter 11

À la Dérive

YVES

Itold myself, on the long ride back to Château du Mer, that if she used my coin, it would only be to purchase passage away from Valemer.

Driftwood floating further away from shore.

I’d resigned myself to let her go, even though Adrien spoke of nothing but her bird and the fact that she could see ghosts the entire afternoon. She was present in our lives, even in her absence. She had become the answer to my problem, and yet still such a mystery.

I had no other choice but to surrender my hopes to the gods, and pray Maris would take pity on my soul. So when her voice called out for me three hours later, I am not proud to report how quickly I came. One moment I was in my study penning a letter; the next, I heard her voice. Instead of waiting to dress fully, I reached for her.

The world folded around me, and with a rush of warm air and the bottom dropping out of my stomach, I was here. In a cramped room above a tavern, the ceiling low enough that I had to mind my head, the air thick with her unique scent of bitter orange, fig, and clove. And the delicious aroma of her blood.

It was as tempting as it was ruinous.

Behave, I told myself. She called you here for a reason.

“Hello. Again,” I said, grinning.

She was not looking at me with eagerness. Her jaw was set. Her shoulders drawn up and squared. Every line of her was strung tight as a halyard in high wind.

I realized she was bracing herself.

I recognized that look because I had worn it myself, in another room a lifetime ago, when the names were called out at The Choosing. Seeing that look gave me cause for concern. I took a step closer, wanting to help, but as soon as I did, she recoiled.

I held up my hands to show I meant her no harm, then asked, “Are you in some kind of trouble?”

“No. Maybe. I’m not sure.” She lifted her eyes to mine—those impossible eyes—and the bravado I’d come to expect from her was nowhere to be found. “I called you here,” she said, “because there’s something I need to tell you.”

Whatever had disturbed her mattered more than what I’d hoped to find when I arrived. “Would you like to sit?” I offered, gesturing toward the narrow bed.

“No. I don’t want to sit. I want to know,” she said, very evenly, despite the color rising in her cheeks, “if you know about The Devouring.”

For a moment I only looked at her. Certain I’d misheard, I asked for clarification. “I’m sorry, the what?”

“The Devouring! A society of Dark Witches.” She watched my face as she said it, searching it. “Do you know what they have planned?”

I had put down that threat a long time ago, and they hadn’t been heard from since.

However, it would have been easier to dismiss if reports of skirmishes in the western reaches hadn’t reached me. Light and Dark each swearing the other had struck first. Witches dead over it.

Marius had left such matters to the duchies to handle, which meant Severin and my small council had taken up the task of investigating suspicious activity in Valemer. I directed them to search for movements of weapons, relics, and coin, but they had found nothing.

No whisper of this old threat.

“The Devouring was eradicated,” I reassured her.

She crossed her arms and lifted her chin. “Are you just saying that because you’re a vampire?”

“I’m saying it because I was there. Having lived five hundred and thirty-one years myself.”