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“Right.”
She perused him some more. “What about Silver?”
Henry shook his head. There was no hesitance here, either. “He’s not here now. So he’s out of the discussion. My apology is to your sisters. And to you.”
It didn’t sit well with her that someone still couldn’t see her brother’s side of things. But Pearl had one weakness, and that was sincerity.
“I’d prefer it if you groveled,” she mused lightly, willing herself to lay down her arms, and return his white flag. Again, he shook his head.
“Not my style.”
The disapproving tone was back, but this time it didn’t feel personal.
Just get this over with, Pearl.
“Fine. Come on in.”
Chapter 4
The cottage looked like a bomb had detonated and scattered the items inside it. Henry tried not to ogle as he glimpsed knickknacks stacked in corners and books lying open on the floor instead of the bookshelves. His fingers itched to pick them up and slide them back into place, but the clearing of Pearl’s throat shifted his attention.
“I can see your headache already starting just looking at my house,” she mused, observing him…perhaps waiting for his criticism. He had no doubt she would match it word for word. He cleared his throat, too, unsure how to reply.
“Well…do you want me to lie or just not say anything?”
Her mouth dropped open, then closed. She looked torn between holding in a chuckle and giving him the stink eye.
“For the record, it’s not my mess. My sisters communicate with me regularly, and most of the time they need specific pages in books for whatever mumbo jumbo they’re up to. I can’t keep up, so I leave the pages as they are until they contact me again.”
“Sapphire?”
“And Emerald,” she said.
“Aren’t they married, respectively, to a dragon shifter and a Fae?”
“Fae King,” she corrected with relish, pride ringing in her voice. “But it pays to be prepared for whatever comes. Silver taught us that, especially after what happened to him.”
“Hmm.”
The thought of Silver didn’t sit badly with Henry as it did before, and maybe her drunken, vulnerable revelation had a lot to do with that. Not commenting on it, he followed her out of the living room, frowning when her wet hair trailed droplets of water on the floorboard. Her feet were bare and her shirt clung to her short frame, tattered at the edges. Everything about it was the polar opposite of the spick-and-span he was used to in his household, and he could already imagine his grandmother having a fit if she ever entered this space.
He imagined Gunther, too, but last night had made him see his brother in a new light—and he didn’t like that new light.
“Have you never seen anything this cluttered before?” she asked.
“No.”
“Oh.”
He tried to push Gunther off his mind as they entered a room and the scent of something lemony hit his nostrils.
“Anyway, here’s my mess and what I’m working on.” She swept her hand around, then stepped back to give him a minute to absorb things.
Henry did, taking in the bottles of potions lined up on one side, and the boxes of powders and hanging dried ingredients on the other. Cauldrons and mixing materials were stacked in yet another corner, while scrolls were rolled up under a table. A cauldron had been dragged to the center—based on the drag marks on the floor—and was bubbling over and spilling all over the sides.
“Pearl…”
She spotted it, too, and cursed as she flew toward the spill, catching it with a shimmering shield. The shield fizzled and hissed. Her brows furrowed as she murmured something in a gentle tone that he had never heard before, which escalated to a satisfied hum when the hissing stopped.
