Page 58
The air smelled of warm food and comfort. Bread. Or garlic. My stomach tightened painfully.
To the left, double doors stood open to a sitting room arranged around an enormous stone fireplace. Lamps glowed beside deep sofas covered in pale linen. Shelves climbed one wall from floor to ceiling, filled with books that had weathered spines, looking as though they were read rather than displayed. The house was vast, but someone had softened it.
I wondered whether that had been Ayla. A woman I had not met had already left traces of herself everywhere. She’d made a home inside a fortress.
Stella closed the doors behind us. “Dinner will be ready in two hours. If you’d like to wash and rest until then.”
“We won’t need two hours,” Demitri replied.
I looked at him. His voice remained steady, but fatigue had settled, making him look exhausted. His jaw was shadowed, his hair disordered from the countless times he had dragged his fingers through it. He needed more than a shower. He needed sleep. Perhaps a week in which no one tried to kill us. Instead, he stood beneath Zeno’s chandelier as though preparing for an interrogation.
Zeno removed his coat and handed it to Stella. “We have work to do.”
“You also have blood on your shirt,” she informed him.
“Don’t fuss, Stella. It’s clearly not my blood.”
“That’s not the comfort you believe it is.”
He glanced down at himself.
“It’s been a difficult day.”
My body seemed to agree before my mind did. A yawn rose without mercy. I tried to cover it, but it caught me halfway through a breath and widened until my eyes watered.
Three people looked at me. Heat crawled up my neck.
“Sorry.”
“For what?” Zeno asked.
“I—”
Another yawn threatened. I pressed my lips together.
Zeno studied me for a moment, then turned toward Stella.
“Take Adriana to the east wing.”
“I don’t—”
Zeno’s expression softened by a degree.
“You need to rest. Besides, if Ayla comes home and finds you looking like this, she’ll roast my balls and make me apologize for inconveniencing her.”
For the first time in what felt like days, something inside me nearly became laughter. It did not quite reach the surface, but Zeno seemed to notice it. “Rest and shower. Stella will bring you clothes. Then you can come down for dinner and we can talk.”
I looked at Demitri. “You should rest too.”
His eyes met mine. “I will.”
It was a lie. We both knew it. Zeno obviously knew it too. “He won’t. He was insufferable as a young man. Time appears to have changed very little in him.”
Demitri ignored him.
Stella picked up a ring of keys from a narrow table.
“This way, Adriana.”
