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Chapter Forty-Two
Einar
The bed is empty when I wake up.
That isn’t unusual. It shouldn’t fill me with panic, but I can’t seem to stop my mind from drifting to the first night I awoke to find her gone, and the hellish hours that followed.
I creep into the sitting room to find Zaina on the sofa, sipping a cup of tea. She looks up when I enter, her features tightening at whatever she sees on mine.
I smooth my expression out, even if it is a heartbeat too late. “I’m surprised you didn’t go after your sister.” I’m not entirely joking.
“I wouldn’t have left without telling you.” Zaina’s tone is too neutral to be casual.
I notice she doesn’t bother to say she wouldn’t have left at all, just that she would have done me the courtesy of telling me. I suppose that’s something.
Sighing, I sink next to her on the sofa. “Why didn’t you?”
Part of me hopes she’ll say she knew it wasn’t worth the risk. It’s a feeble hope, and one she quashes with her response.
“Because I’m trying to trust her to take care of it.” That comment is definitely pointed.
I’m debating responding when she clears her throat. “Tomorrow will be our last chance to talk to her before the wedding, but we shouldn’t tell her in a room full of people. So, I’ll stay in the suites, and you can bring her here.”
I raise my eyebrows, wondering if I heard her correctly, and she shoots me a sideways glance. “Khijhana was distracted by me yesterday, and I want her focused on protecting you.”
“Even though a ball is hardly a matter of life and death?” I parrot her words back to her, and she scowls.
“After what I saw of Aika yesterday, I wouldn’t be so sure.”
