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“Ah. No strings attached, I see.”
“We’re just—it’snot—”
“Oh.This isrecentfor you both. Your first—no, your second encounter. And you’re already stammering?” Camilla’s pout scrunches to one side, contemplative, then to the other, disgusted. “So he’sthatkind of kisser…. I didn’t need to know that about him, actually. I regret asking.”
I can’t feel my face anymore. I give up. “He’s not that good—goodat all—he’s—”
“Runs in the family.” She winks.
“—a serious problem.”
Camilla sighs at last. “Alas.You’re probably right about that, what with, well,everythingright now. Who else knows?”
“No one.I’m hoping it stays that way.”
“Not even Dante? I bet he knows. He’s just being polite about it.”
“Ugh.” I sink into the sofa. Catastrophe yowls and recurls herself into a smaller circle as my weight bears onto her tail. I scratch her scruff in apology. “I mean it. Cyrus and I aren’t anything. It was a one-time…two-time thing.”
“And I bet you thought it was going to be a one-time thing before it became a two-time thing,” she tsks. “Do you need a contraceptive draft?”
“No!” My blush reignites.
But the second I let my thoughts slip from the present, my body will convince me to want things I shouldn’t want. Skirting its edges of intimacy has made me curious and hungry as if I left a half-devoured supper. I’ve never been shy around Cyrus, and that’s maybe the entire problem.
“Are you sure about that?” Camilla grabs her basket of cakes and reaches into the middle of the stack, pulling out a pouch that smells strongly of herbs.
“You already brought—”
“Oh, I assumed. You’ve both been acting strange, and I saw you heading back here with your hair amess.Which reminds me: be careful around the gossips. You know how chatter spreads. Even a single ember can be dangerous.”
“I don’t evenlikeCyrus,” I mutter, one last protest.
“If that didn’t stop either of you from throwing yourselves at each other before, why would that stop you now?” She bats her lashes, making too much sense. “We can’t help what we want. People fall in love with us Lidines and—and it’stooeasy. We see into hearts like you see into futures. I know you’re a big girl, but that doesn’t mean you won’t be silly, nor that you can’t get hurt. Things can go too far. Fates, knowing you two, they definitely will.”
I bury my face into the back of the couch. “Getting back to the matter of Raya—”
“Now that she’s in the palace, I can keep a close eye on her. Butfirst,I don’t want a niece or nephew yet, Violet, cute as they would be.” Camilla holds out the pouch. “Eina, ever-doting nurse, gave this to me, but I don’t need them.Brew two leaves to a cup, drink it every morning. Keep it for later if you don’t use it now.”
When I don’t take it, she reaches over to stuff it in my pocket. I scowl, and she pats my cheek.
“Consider it a consolation gift for liking men.”
When Camilla is gone, I lock the door. I walk past the intricate cabinets in the front of the room, past the curtain behind the divining table, to a plain cabinet that sits alongside crates of unsorted instruments. I push aside bundles of cloth on the top shelf and reach around the back until my hands land on a box carved out of pure onyx, shining like the back of a raven’s wing. I unlock it with the key I brought from my bedroom.
Lifting the lid, I find the thorn exactly as I left it.
Any normal thorn would have withered by now. The length of it is stiff as steel, and it remains as green as the new vines outside the tower. I grip it like a knife and swing it through the air, and it flies easier than any blade I’ve ever held, true as enchantment, as if it were made for me.
A sureness that would make me feel confident were I holding any other weapon, but this only makes me queasy.
Because if it’s made for me, then I’m meant to use it.
I can’t imagine piercing Cyrus’s heart with this. When I push the tip against the wood of the shelf, it makes a deep mark. I don’t dare test it against skin; the tip still shines with its unearthly red.
When it strikes his heart, it will destroy his body.
Though I’m furious at the thought of him, though I’m as vile as many in the Auvenese court, I’m no murderer.
