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Ana bowed over her knees to hide her embarrassing weeping.
“Hey,” Tyreste whispered. “You belong here. And you’re safe. Tonight is for joy.”
Ana pulled herself up, blinking away the sting from her eyes. She passed a smile around the circle. “Thank you for inviting me. I know you feel I’ve done something exceptional, but I love... I love Adeline.” She signed the words to Addy. “And I...” She glanced at Tyr, her chest full of fear and the other emotion, the one not safe to feel.
“It’s all right. You can say it. None of us can stand Tyr and his whinging either,” Rikard quipped.
Everyone laughed, including Ana. Tyreste rolled his eyes and nudged her in mock offense.
The other Rikard, her favorite mouser, ripped a shrill howl from somewhere in the woods. Ana stretched her hand out and was rewarded with a soft headbutt moments later.
“That’s bloody shite,” Rikard said. “Named a cat after his favorite brother, and the cursed thing won’t come anywhere near me.”
“Favorite brother?” Tyreste asked. “You thinkthat’swhy I named him Rikard? Couldn’t be because I loved screaming ‘get your shit together, Rik’ so much?”
Rikard the Mouser hissed, and everyone was laughing again.
“The little bugger is a fabulous judge of character. Aren’t you, Riki?” Agnes said.
“Cats are a good omen in Vjestik lore,” Faustina said. “Unless, of course, you’re my husband.”
Rikard squinted at her from the side. She laced their hands tight and brought them to her mouth with a laugh.
“It’s been a long time, Ana,” Stojan said from across the fire. “Kahk si?”
“How am I... Where would I even start?” she said lightly, her eyes flaring. “I’d be lying if I said things had been good since Oma died, Stoj.”
“Ksana was such a bright light,” Faustina said wistfully.
“That she was,” Stojan agreed. “May the Ancestors forevermore preserve Ksana. And Stepan, a good man taken young, to help keep our people fed. We remember them as the ones who came before so others could come after.” He raised his mug, and everyone else followed. “By the wings of this life or the bones of the next.”
Ana and Faustina repeated the old Vjestik refrain. Tyreste clinked his mug to Ana’s, his eyes still fixed on her as he took a swallow.
“Thank you.” Ana wiped her mouth. A soft calm stole over her, one she hadn’t felt in a long time. She was safe with the Penhallows, in a way she hadn’t been since her mother had been taken. “For all of this. For inviting me.”
“You might be singing another tune when Agnes’s stew gives you the—” Rikard was cut off when something sailed from the other side of the fire and hit him in the shoulder. “That fucking hurt, Ag!”
“There’s a word for that. What is it, darling...” Agnes fingered her chin. “Ah, yes. Justice.”
Faustina passed Ana a bowl. “Don’t listen to Rik. It’s really quite good.”
Ana nodded her thanks. “I’m sure it is.”
“Ana, love, we haven’t seen Steward Wynter in the village in some time. How is your father these days?” Fransiska asked. She knelt to add more logs to the fire.
“I’m afraid he’s been unwell,” Ana said cautiously. Tyreste’s hand slid to the outside of her thigh. His fingers tapped along the edge of her dress, a reminder he was there.
“I’m so sorry to hear that. We’ll beseech the Guardians for his swift return to good health,” Olov said. “And your stepmother?”
“Ana’s stepmother is not worth wasting our breath on, and we won’t speak of her tonight,” Tyreste said. He brushed his thumb along her thigh. “We’ve known our share of those people, haven’t we?”
Everyone nodded, muttering agreement. Agnes translated the message with her hands for Adeline, as she had been the whole time.
Ana smiled at Tyreste from the side, nearly losing herself in the dreamy look he had trained on her.
She loved him so much.
She had always loved him.
