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But no matter how hard she’d looked, she hadn’t found any leads.
While she worked, Tristan pulled her away for breakfast, for lunch, and for dinner. At night, he pulled her away for eight hours of sleep and a prelude to dreams.
And nightmares.
Lila squeezed her eyes shut.
“Did you call the oracle back?” Tristan asked.
“No.” Lila had no desire for the lilac-robed woman to mess with her mind again. The oracle had an entire compound full of private militia. She and her purplecoats could deal with whatever crisis had come upon them.
They could reap the nightmares that followed.
Damn the gods and damn the oracles. Lila didn’t even know what she believed about them anymore, and she had grown tired of thinking about the question and its implications.
“I’ve seen her name on your palm nearly every day,” Tristan pressed. “She’s even started calling me now.”
“So block her ID.”
“She wants to see you. I think she wants to help.”
“I don’t need her help.” Lila stood and slipped into Tristan’s shirt from the night before.
“Maybe you do. Maybe you should consider it.”
“When she has one of her so-called visions about Reaper’s partner, then I’ll consider it. That’s the only useful thing she can offer me right now.”
“I don’t think that’s the kind of help she’s offering.”
“I told you. I don’t need help, not from her.”
“Lila—”
“I need a shower.”
Lila turned to go. The bed creaked. Tristan grabbed her arm once more. “If you don’t want that kind of help, fine. But if something happens at breakfast, if your mother tries anything, I want you to go to the oracle’s compound. I don’t care if you’re an outsider. That woman owes you. She owes both of us.”
Lila slipped from his grasp. “My mother won’t send her blood squad after me, Tristan. I didn’t mess up that badly.”
She left the bedroom, easing into the dark apartment beyond before sliding into the bathroom and switching on the light. The sudden, apathetic brightness burned her eyes, and the tile chilled the soles of her feet. She closed the door with a quick little snick, careful not to wake Dixon in the room next door. She strode quickly to the shower and turned on the water. A loud growl thundered down the pipes, then faded as the plumbing shuddered to life.
As the water rushed and warmed, Lila bent over the cracked sink and stared at her image in the mirror. Her vacation had taken away the dark circles under her eyes, but her dreams had left their mark upon them. They’d grown darker, grown harder, grown…
Different.
She turned away from the mirror and ran her fingers through her curls. Stepping into the shower, she warmed herself underneath the water and
reached for her shampoo, perched beside Tristan’s as if it had lived there all along.
As if she had lived there all along.
A month ago, she wouldn’t have believed that a bottle of shampoo could freak her out so completely. But highborns didn’t live with one another, and they never focused on one lover.
Being with Tristan in the shop?
Only the poorer classes did such things.
At some point, she’d stopped caring, only understanding that she didn’t want to slip into anyone else’s bed. Tristan had gotten under her skin, and she didn’t know what to do about it. Maybe she didn’t even want to do anything about it. It didn’t help that she’d enjoyed every minute of her time with Tristan, at least when she wasn’t panicking. Panicking about him, her blackmailer, the eventual loss of her job and place among the highborn, about everything she’d worked for her entire life turning to shit.
